As part of a State Budget requirement, the Department of Health was required by law to release a report looking at minimum staffing levels in hospitals and nursing homes at the end of last year.

The report was released almost eight months late.

Senator James Skoufis called this move inexcusable.

“We didn’t know that there was a pandemic coming in March 2020, but this speaks to why it’s important that these studies, these reports, these directives are followed,” Senator Skoufis explained. “And to not mince words here, the Department of Health broke the law.”

In response to this report being late, the Health Department released a statement saying:

“Before its release, the study remained under review as our focus continued to be on the unprecedented and ongoing public health crisis.  For the purposes of the study, it was also important to look at the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on staffing.”

However, the report which focuses on the “Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act” laid out by the state Legislature in 2019, was due well before it was known that COVID-19 was starting to sweep through New York.

Pat Kane, executive director of the State Nurses Association, says her organization has been pushing for a minimum staffing requirement since the ‘90s and was also frustrated with how late this report came out.

They also disagreed with most of the main findings in this report, saying the cost especially was off.

The report lists that in order to achieve a minimum staffing level, it would cost hospitals an additional $2.4 billion and nursing homes an additional $2.3 billion.

“We do not agree with that cost,” Kane emphasized. “That’s the number that we have seen thrown around over the years. And as I’ve said it almost looks like the study started from that number and worked backwards.”

The Health Department’s report also found that a minimum staffing requirement would be nearly impossible for many hospitals, citing a nursing shortage that could continue for the next decade.

Because of this, Dr. David Goede, president of the Nurse Practitioner Association, agrees with the report in that minimum staffing requirements should be flexible depending on the region. Yet, he also believes the state should do more to increase its number of nurses and nurse practitioners.  

“Maybe we need to focus on nursing education and decrease the cost of nursing education, either by subsidies or making nursing education free then we can increase our pipeline of nurses within the system,” Dr. Goede explained.

In conclusion, the report also stated that there was “limited data available on the nurse workforce in New York,” making this entire analysis challenging.

Kane says this is troubling since hospitals are required by law to report how many staff they employ.

“It’s very disturbing that the state wouldn’t have information about the number of registered nurses that are actually working,” Kane said. “Especially considering what we just went through with the pandemic. Obviously the need for staffing was very great.”

California is the only state right now to have a mandated minimum nurse to patient ratio.

You can find DOH's staffing report here.