Safe staffing levels of professional health care personnel are associated with:

• Decrease stress and fewer injuries to professional health care staff and patients,
• Fewer test reporting errors that decrease unnecessary additional test orders.
• Shorter hospital stays for patients,
• Lower health care cost for patients and lower mortality rates.

The UVHN- CVPH Medical Center Laboratory has implemented an unsafe staffing level. Their practices also violate the current agreement between the New York State Nurses Association and UVHN-CVPH Medical Center located in Plattsburgh New York and all its affiliations covered under the agreement. This Laboratory Policy/Procedure Manual L-Adm-001.R1 Title: Absence on Schedule Day of Work, is an unauthorized Policy/Procedure that reduces professional health care staff to an unsafe level as low as 1 Technologist in some work areas which can lead to severe consequences such as:

• Decrease in Employee and Patient safety, resulting in an increase in avoidable injuries to workers, patients, and their families, and increased healthcare costs.

• Decrease in quality of Laboratory Testing, which leads to increases in erroneous reporting of test results that increase misdiagnoses and wrong treatment for patients,

• Delay of critical test results to clinicians which will lead to increase in patient injury and/or fatality.

• Decreases patient care and service in our community.

We want a laboratory director who treats us with the respect and dignity we deserve. One who will not create a toxic environment. One who will not tarnish morale of the professional healthcare staff and will not create an atmosphere of paranoia. One that trust the knowledge of the professional health care staff to produce quality work. One with better leadership.

We urge the Hospital to relieve the Laboratory Director of his duties effective immediately and provide the Evening/ Night shifts with a Supervisor. We also urge the laboratory managers to stop forcing the Blood Bank and the Microbiology staff to work every third weekend.

This petition is for Safe Staffing Saves Life at UVHN-CVPH Medical Center in upstate New York.

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