Nurses and other health care workers lobbying to receive crisis pay from Stony Brook Southampton Hospital and Stony Brook Eastern Long Island Hospital made their case public by picketing outside the two facilities yesterday.
They hope that Stony Brook Medicine, the main entity that manages Southampton and Eastern Long Island hospitals, will follow in the footsteps of Northwell Health in providing extra compensation that would acknowledge their stressful work during the height of the Covid-19 crisis. Suffolk County's first Covid-19 patient was treated at Stony Brook Southampton.
"We're trying to not sound like we're all looking for a buck, but we worked hard. We went above and beyond what we normally do, so we should get some sort of recognition," said Valerie O'Neill, a 31-year veteran of the nursing field and a nurse delegate for the 1199 union.
The "informational picket" is not a strike because the staff members taking part will be doing so on their own time, not in lieu of working their shifts. According to Ms. O'Neill, negotiations have been ongoing for at least six weeks, during which time many of them held silent vigils in the hospital lobbies and other places.
The union represents more than 500 East End health care employees, from nurses to dietary and laboratory technicians to respiratory therapists and others.
Conditions at the hospital in Southampton were incredibly difficult, workers have said, as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo mandated that hospitals increase their capacity by at least 50 percent. The East End facilities did not have summer staff in place yet when an influx of people came here from elsewhere, though eventually more employees were brought in.
"To have that recognition would be like saying, 'You guys pulled through for this tiny little hospital in this community because there's nobody else,' " Ms. O'Neill said. "We're not competing with anybody else. People have to come here. On the South Fork, we're the only one who's delivering babies. We had that big surge of city dwellers coming out to their Hamptons homes, and now they're delivering here, or when there are problems, they come to the hospital."
By picketing on Wednesday, "We'll be making the community aware that we are trying to get recognition. Sometimes the community doesn't hear about this," Ms. O'Neill said. "We have a lot of staff members who are very upset. You feel disheartened because being a health care worker, you do more than just pushing a paper, handing out a pill. You see people at their most vulnerable moment and you want to help them, you want to be supportive, yet you are fighting with your own fears."
"Stony Brook Southampton Hospital . . . is in talks with 1199. We value the skilled work of every member of our staff," a spokesperson for the hospital wrote in a statement yesterday. "Our primary concern has always been, and continues to be, our employees' safety as they provide the highest quality of care for our patients. We work every day to foster a positive work environment where all employees are valued and respected."
The Southampton workers have questioned where money has gone from the hospital's Healthcare Heroes Fund for Covid-19, in which donors were encouraged to support the extra measures the hospital has had to take during the pandemic.
"It will take heroic action to see us through these challenging times, but we are committed to doing everything that we possibly can to care for our communities," the hospital's fund-raising website says. "To support the extraordinary expenses associated with our hospital's equally extraordinary efforts to care for our communities during the coronavirus outbreak, you can make a gift to help our efforts."
Barbara Jo Howard, a hospital spokeswoman, explained yesterday the Healthcare Heroes Fund helped cover the cost of beds -- Stony Brook Southampton increased capacity from 94 to 184, and intensive care unit space from seven to 21 -- as well as more ventilators, hiring and housing 50 traveling nurses and respiratory therapists, and purchasing additional personal protective equipment, among other things. "The funding helps, but doesn't offset the costs of treating Covid-19," she said.
On April 20, Northwell Health announced it would be giving $2,500 bonuses to its employees for their work during the pandemic. Governor Cuomo has also urged the federal government to provide additional compensation for front-line workers.
Ms. O'Neill went on to say many of the nurses believe they are experiencing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: sleepless nights, emotional breakdowns, fear. "If we have a second surge, it'll be terrifying," she said. "You just don't know how you're going to handle it."
With Reporting by Jennifer Landes
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Note: This story has been updated since it originally appeared online. Ms. O'Neill's role with the union has also been corrected.