The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) filed three lawsuits Monday challenging the "failures" of the New York State Department of Health (DOH) and two New York hospitals, Montefiore Medical Center and Westchester Medical Center, alleging the entities aren't doing enough to protect nurses treating Covid-19 patients.
All three suits allege shortcomings such as inadequate personal protective equipment, a lack of training for registered nurses redeployed from hospital units to meet the staffing needed to treat the high number of Covid-19 patients and unsafe working conditions for high-risk employees.
"More than seven in ten of our nurses are reporting exposure to Covid-19 and most are still untested. These lawsuits were filed to protect our nurses, our patients and our communities from grossly inadequate and negligent protections," NYSNA Executive Director Pat Kane said in a news release. "We cannot allow these dangerous practices to continue."
The New York State Nurses Association has 42,000 members, according to the court documents. So far nearly 1,000 union members have tested positive, including at least 150 at Montefiore, according to the filing.
At least 84 nurses in the union have been hospitalized with the virus, and at least six nurses are known to have died from the virus after contracting Covid-19 while working, court documents say.
New York state nurses union files three lawsuits alleging poor Covid-19 working conditions