UTICA N.Y.- A rally was held in Utica Thursday evening in support of raising revenue and adequately staffing New York's Hospitals, Nursing Homes, and other Healthcare facilities.
The rally was held in front of the Utica College softball and baseball fields on Burrstone Road in Utica.
As New York State braces for a second wave of COVID-19, union members of the CWA 1126 union are urging the state to protect frontline workers and their patients.
The purpose of the rally was to bring support and light to the union's fight for safe staffing. Members, including Nurses wanted to get out there and let the community know what their efforts are, and that all frontline workers are supported.
Research studies show that understaffed Hospitals have had more deaths than other Hospitals with high staffing levels.
Randie Schrader, Vice President of RNs in Healthcare for CWA 1126 says safe staffing is very important.
"It's been a battle we've had legislatively for over 12 years, so this is actually a collaboarative effort. The study by Governor Cuomo's team came out not in favor of our initiative, and that was recently released, and so again the battle and fight is on for providing safe staffing to our community." said Schrader.
Schrader says with there currently not being a vaccine for coronavirus, there was no identified algorythm to treat covid, and nurses are learning as they go, but are far from beaten, and are very concerned about a second wave.
