RN to lawmakers: We need help STAT!
Text, photos by Deborah A. Miles
Hundreds of PEF nurses scheduled time off from their jobs to attend a May rally at the state Capitol and to lobby lawmakers. Here is what some of them had to say:

Eva Jordan,  Psychiatric Nurse Admin.1 Division 267, Region 10 Manhattan Psychiatric Center “We are very short-staffed and working 16 hours per day, almost every other day. There are 27 patients to one nurse.  Fortunately, we haven’t had any patient or staff injuries.   “But our nurses are constantly leaving. So there is the other issue of retention.   “We really need to cut back on mandatory overtime and get a better nurse-patient ratio.”	Debby Mears,  Psychiatric Nurse 2 Division 231, Region 8 Capital District Psychiatric Center “A nurse pressured with an extended workload will find it much easier to make mistakes .  “You don’t hear a lot about the mistakes, like a nurse who almost missed giving a patient medication. Patients become frustrated and agitated when nurses are so busy. “When I started at CDPC 12 years ago, there were four nurses to 20 patients. Now, one RN sees 25-30 patients and there are two nurses to 20 patients in the Intensive Care Unit.”	Barb Rock, Psychiatric Nurse 2 Division 180, Region 1 Buffalo Psychiatric Center “Many of our nurses are forced to work overtime, especially during premium family times.  We have nurses who have children, and a lot of them are single parents. They are forced to stay and then jeopardize the safety of their own children while they are at work . “Nurses are often put in that position — to choose between their family obligations and their profession. Your license is on the line if you put a patient at risk by refusing to stay. And even if you’re tired, you have to perform your best working back-to-back shifts.”
Della Maddox, Nurse 2 Division 242, Region 7  Long Lake Day Rehabilitation Sunmount DDSO “We have one nurse who takes care of 41 consumers. There haven’t been any incidents, but we are just managing. We pitch in and we help each other.  There’s an increased use of direct-care staff or unlicensed personnel doing work that an RN should be doing, such as passing out medications and doing certain treatments.  They make decisions as to when to call a nurse. They are not trained to assess. An RN is more adept at noticing something before it gets to a critical point. And an RN is responsible for what they do and what they don’t do.  I have eight direct-care staff working under me, and any mistakes they make can affect my license.”	Richard Magelaner, President PEF Retirees NYC Chapter Consultant, PEF Veterans Committee “This rally is a way for nurses and supporters like me to send a message that changes are necessary in the health care profession. We need to protect our nurses, physically, emotionally and financially so they are able to provide top quality nursing care. Nurses today are very underpaid.  They have too many patients. The state needs to look at the nursing crisis and develop incentives for recruitment and retention. We need to attract dedicated people into the profession instead of giving them reasons to drop-out.”