The New York State Nurses Association has filed a complaint with a state labor board after it says a nurse practitioner was suspended without pay at Kings County Hospital Center in retaliation for union organizing.
NYC Health + Hospitals, which administers the city’s public hospitals, suspended ICU nurse practitioner Sarah Dowd over what it called an “alleged act of misconduct” on Oct. 6. The letter provided no details on the alleged infraction, but records submitted as part of the union’s challenge to the suspension show that H+H alleges Dowd improperly pulled nurses from their duties to discuss union matters, a charge she denies.
Dowd told The City Reporter that she wasn’t on the clock that day, but was in the hospital in her role as a union official, talking to nurses about staffing issues that have plagued Kings County for months, a practice known as “rounding.”
Any suggestion that Dowd pulled her nurse colleagues from the bedside in order to have those conversations is “categorically false,” Dowd told The City Reporter.
In a statement, H+H spokesperson Stephanie Buhle said the hospital system “fully supports nurses’ right to meet with their union representatives as outlined in our contract and as appropriate for patient care. Our patients’ safety is our priority, and we appreciate the nurses who put this commitment into practice every day.”
A city hospitals official said that as many as ten nurses had left their assignments to meet with Dowd.
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Dowd is the vice president of Kings County’s local bargaining unit — essentially the union local covering nursing staff at that hospital. In that role, she said she had “rounded” her own unit and others at the hospital “countless” times.
On Oct. 6, Dowd was in the hospital’s medical-surgical unit following up on reports of excessive floating — when hospital administrators assign nurses to multiple departments per shift to make up for staffing shortages.
She said that “rounding” is legally protected union activity so long as it does not interfere with patient care.
“Obviously, enforcing staffing ratios and enforcing the contract are two of the major things that we focus on as union people,” said Dowd. “I’ve been doing this for the last 10 years.”
In his Oct. 9 letter informing Dowd of her suspension, George Lawrence, Health + Hospitals’ director of labor relations, also banned her from H+H facilities “unless you are receiving treatment as a patient.”
Issues surrounding nurse-to-patient ratios have been a flashpoint of the healthcare labor movement in recent years. It was a major point of contention during the weekslong strike by 15,000 nurses at three private hospital systems in New York this past winter.
The nurses union held a rally for Dowd on Thursday outside the hospital and filed a formal complaint with the state Public Employees Relations Board challenging Dowd’s suspension.
At the rally, a defiant Dowd told supporters that her suspension was one of the most “outrageous, egregious, disgusting examples of retaliation” she had ever witnessed.
“They think we’re gonna keep our mouths shut as our patients are subjected to the fatal consequences of unsafe staffing practices,” she said to the crowd of fellow nurses, some of whom bore signs reading “Stop Threatening Nurses.” “Our hospital will never be safe if nurses cannot raise the alarm about unsafe staffing practices without fear of retaliation.”
In its complaint to the board on Thursday, the union formally accused H+H of retaliating against Dowd for her union work.
Pat Kane, the union’s executive director, said in a statement she was “profoundly disappointed” by Dowd’s suspension.
“At a time when thousands of immigrant healthcare workers have lost their jobs and we can expect an influx of uninsured and underinsured patients to flood city hospitals, the H+H administration should be working with NYSNA nurses to address chronic understaffing, not fighting against us and unfairly disciplining nurses for being patient advocates,” Kane said.
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