Nurses, elected officials and community leaders hosted a bake sale for patient care Monday to highlight staffing issues at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y., according to an announcement from the New York State Nurses Association.
Nurses claim Montefiore has a staffing issue that is causing overcrowding and even keeping patients in hallways.
"This staffing issue is directly undermining quality patient care, affecting some of the most vulnerable patients — infants, children and seniors. Admissions and outpatient visits are way up, but staffing has not kept pace," the union said.
The NYSNA, which represents the nurses, goes on to make specific allegations against Montefiore. The organization claims the pediatric intensive care unit, neonatal ICU and emergency departments are all understaffed; that patients waiting to be admitted to a room are lying on stretchers in hallways; and that elderly patients unable to walk to bathrooms are lying in hallway beds without call buttons, among other accusations.
In response to the bake sale, hospital officials said at Montefiore, the University Hospital for Albert Einstein College of Medicine, patient care and safety is the highest priority, and Montifiore is informed by the latest advances in scientific research.
"We continuously monitor our staffing levels to ensure we provide the best, safest care for our patients. Staffing decisions are made at each shift in accordance with national best practices that consider the complexity of patient care needs, requisite nurse training and experience, and the overall hospital census. Supervisors are at Montefiore 24 hours a day/seven days a week to evaluate if additional staff is needed should one of these factors change," they said.
Additionally, Montefiore officials noted, the hospital hired 45 full-time positions last April to staff a nurse floating pool, as part of Montefiore's finalized agreement with NYSNA in 2015.
As far as hallway beds, Montefiore said during times of high volume in its emergency departments, patients who meet a specific criteria and provide consent, may be assigned hallway beds as the hospital discharges recovering patients and prepares rooms. Montefiore also noted efforts it has made to reduce the influx of patients to its emergency departments, such as opening 30 new beds in its Moses campus and 20 additional beds at its Weiler campus last year.
Moving forward, Montefiore said they "look forward to our ongoing work with NYSNA as we continue to ensure our successful workforce is comprised of the right mix of care providers, who together, are improving patient outcomes and experience."
According to the union, bake sale earnings will go to Mocho Village, a Bronx-based organization focused on the healthcare and educational needs of underserved communities in the Bronx and in Jamaica.