The pandemic has had a strain on everyone, but nurses have been on the frontline since the beginning. As the coronavirus continues to spread, hospitals are seeing worker shortages.
A nurse in the Mohawk says helping others is her passion, but more needs to be done to keep her and other nurses on the job.
“When I was young, my grandmother had a health scare, some cardiac issues, and I would take care of her,” St. Elizabeth’s Hospital nurse Suzanne Barnes said. “She said, ‘you always know what to do, you should really go to school.”’
Her grandmother’s words inspired her, so as a mom of three young boys at the time, Barnes decided to go to nursing school. She said it was challenging, but having her boys by her side made it worth it.
“One week later I was in nursing orientation,” Barnes said. “So it was a proud day.”
Caring for people in the community she knows and loves has been her passion, but the pandemic has made her job difficult because of worker shortages.
“The assignments we’ve been given are very unmanageable,” Barnes said. “[We have] six, seven, eight, nine patients at a time at night, that is just not safe for us. It’s also not safe for patients. So it’s been discouraging to not be able to spend that quality time at the bedside that we have been used to.”
Barnes says her employer, the Mohawk Valley Healthcare System, should try to retain their nurses by increasing their pay.
“Do I think that we should be compensated as frontline workers who have been through this? Absolutely, I think that we should,” Barnes said.
Patricia Charvat, senior vice president of marketing and strategy at Mohawk Valley Healthcare system, says they are in contract negotiation with the New York State Nurses Association.
“We are committed to negotiating a new contract with the nurses’ union, in good faith,” Charvat said. “Our goal is to make sure that the contract is fair and equitable.”
Charvat says they are committed to ensuring safe staffing. She says there was a nursing shortage before the pandemic, but due to the stress of the pandemic, they’ve seen more people leave the field. She says to ensure safe staffing, they have to hire more travel nurses.
“We may not be able to be as competitive sometimes in wages like with traveling nurses, but our goal is to make sure that we have an environment that people enjoy working in and feel like they make a meaningful difference,” Charvat said.
“I’ve stayed because it’s what I do,” Barnes said. “I’m a nurse, I work there, I want to work there. This is my city, this is my community.”
But if things don’t change, she says she will leave the place she calls home.
“I want to continue to provide the best care that I can as a nurse,” Barnes said.
Charvat says MVHS expects to meet with the nurses’ union in the next few weeks to finalize a contract.