Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - During the Christmas Weekend blizzard that grinded the City of Buffalo and much of Western New York to a halt, many nurses and other medical staff members at local hospitals were forced to remain on-hand over the course of several days to help care for and tend to patients and others at their facilities.
This included the Buffalo VA Medical Center on Bailey Avenue that saw a number of staff members getting stuck at the hospital for days straight, some being forced to work shifts that spanned a full day.
A number of registered nurses represented by National Nurses United (NNU) spoke outside the Buffalo VA Hospital on Tuesday to bring to the public’s attention the hospital administration’s grievous failure to adequately prepare for the deadly blizzard, as well as management’s refusal to properly address chronic staffing issues.
"The chronic nature of understaffing reached catastrophe this past Christmas when Buffalo experienced the deadly snowstorm," said Nicole White, Director of NNU Buffalo. "Nurses, who are already fatigued, stayed the course and provided care without ceasing. Nurses worked upwards of 24 hours a day. I, myself, worked 26 hours straight with a 30-minute break. We persevered, our patients were cared for. Nurses showed that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. But the nurses did not have to work that hard for so long, but were forced into it by a management team that denies that there's even a problem. Nurses have attempted to work with management on how best to recruit and retain nurses. Management has closed the door. They refuse to bargain with us in good faith, and attempt to illegitimatize nurses' position and our voices, and deny us our place at the table."
At the Buffalo VA Hospital, leaders of NNU Buffalo have expressed a number of concerns with management, which has included issues with proper staffing. However, they feel the concerns of the members are falling on deaf ears.
"We decided to have a forum today to have our nurses come forth and express themselves directly to our director," said Edith Nesbitt, Associate Director of NNU Buffalo. "Some of our members express how they feel that our administration does not care about them. They express feelings of abandonment during the times of weather emergencies. Our members say they are in disbelief that the administration did barely anything to prepare for the blizzard, and they have not seen any of them in-person to even thank them for their actions."
Leaders with NNU Buffalo believe the administration at the Buffalo VA did not have a plan of action, and failed to make appropriate and adequate disaster preparation.
"No additional nurses were brought in, no arrangements were made to offer nurses lodging next to the hospital like other hospitals in the area, there were no arrangements to provide transportation to the nurses like other hospitals did, and when the storm hit, the hospital had just a number of nurses that were regularly scheduled to provide care and that volunteered to help at that time. That was the staff that stayed," White explained.
For staff nurses like Michael Buehlmann, he was one that came on for his day shift on Friday, Dec. 23 and was forced to stay at the hospital throughout the duration of the storm. He said the weather turned for the worst so fast that if staff members were not on-hand or hadn't left by 12 p.m. EST, there was no going anywhere.
"I was here 66 hours. Another nurse I work with was here 72 hours, she left Monday morning. So from Friday morning to Monday morning, she was here because there was no staff," said Buehlmann, as he recounted his experience. "Friday night was the absolute worst on my floor. There were four of us working, three of us on the floor, one nurse and a step down unit. It was awful. I didn't sleep for 23 hours. So that's the reality of what we had to do. We did it because we're nurses. That's what we do at the end of the day, you have to take care of your patients."
While some additional help did manage to make its way to the hospital over the weekend, Buehlmann says the planning for an event such as a blizzard could have been executed and thoroughly planned out better to ensure the staff and patients on-hand could get the adequate help they needed.
"I think what we're saying is we knew this was coming. You guys [the media] did a great job of saying this storm is coming, and we didn't have a plan, or certainly not a plan that was adequate," he said. "It's easy to say at the end of the day, 'Oh, it was awful.' For 36 hours, it was awful, but that's why hospital systems do things like Thursday night, putting the nurses up somewhere else to make sure they're available, which other hospitals did. They had a plan. We just felt like maybe we could've done a better job. You've got 400 nurses here represented by NNU, who would love to talk with management to say, 'Hey, next time, what can we do better?' And for whatever reason, they just choose not to engage us. All we want is engagement."
While staffing in the nursing industry has been a hot topic over the past few years, especially in the days following the COVID-19 pandemic, NNU leaders want to make one thing clear: There's no actual true nursing shortage, and there's no change in the number of nurses that are working.
"That's actually a nice tale that they tell us," White said. "What we have is a redistribution of nurses. We have a shortage of nurses who are willing to work at the bedside. That's where we have to enhance, basically, our offerings, and how to get nurses who want to come to the bedside, stay at the bedside and take care of patients in probably some of their most difficult days, a hospitalized patient. So I'm asking you not to buy the narrative that there is a nursing staffing shortage. There is a crisis, but it's not what you think. There are plenty of nurses out there, they're just not willing to come to the bedside."
With that in mind, White is recommending for administration and nurses to come together and work out an alternative for work scheduling, and offer more flexible scheduling for nurses.
"Make our scheduling more attractive, so that nurses do want to come here. That's one of the main things to get nurses who want to come and stay," she said.
After Tuesday's press conference, leaders of NNU Buffalo were holding a forum at 12:30 p.m. ES, where they asked hospital administration to come and hear out questions and comments from nurses on staff. In addition, representatives from Congressman Brian Higgins' office would be on-hand for the forum, as Higgins is away in Washington, D.C.
Hear more from Tuesday's press conference available in the player below: