Hospitals need nursing to health

Manhattan: “New York’s hospitals are sick” (Op-Ed, May 14) provides important data about New York hospitals, according to federal report cards. But it misses the point: For-profit hospitals, with lowerquality grades and higher death rates than not-for-profit hospitals, are hardly the solution. New York hospitals are not scoring well due to serious staffing shortfalls among the ranks of registered nurses and other caregivers. The 42,000 RNs of the New York State Nurses Association have implored management at hospitals across the state to fully and professionally staff hospital units with the RNs needed to do the job. With proper nurse-patient staffing, quality care goes up and, according to peer-reviewed studies, infections, readmissions and death rates go down. Understaffing is at crisis levels in many units in the state.

We urge the state Legislature to pass the Safe Staffing for Quality Care Act, which guarantees enough RNs to staff hospital units.

With lower quality grades and higher death rates, do we really want to invite for-profits into our care system? Nurses mean it when we say, “Safe Staffing Saves Lives.” And safe staffing will get us the results and the report card our patients deserve. Jill Furillo, RN

executive director, New York State Nurses Association Manhattan: First you have an evangelical pastor who has stated that Jews are going to hell and a megachurch televangelist who once claimed that Hitler was part of God’s plan to bring Jews back to Israel both playing high-profile roles in the opening ceremony of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Then you have Ivanka and Jared (whose main role in the administration was supposed to be forging a peace treaty between Israel and Palestine) flashing smiles on one-half of your TV screen, while 60 Palestinian protesters are being murdered by police in Gaza on the other half. Nice optics! Look, I’m a negotiator/mediator by trade, and this ain’t no way to do a peace deal. Trump’s recent moves to destabilize the Middle East by breaking with our allies in withdrawing from the Iran deal and then moving our embassy to Jerusalem only serve West Orange, N.J.: Your May 15 front page depicting Ivanka Trump as “Daddy’s Little Ghoul” is beyond despicable. To imply that Ivanka or anyone celebrating the opening of the Jerusalem embassy is celebrating the deaths of Arab rioters is beyond the pale. This is not journalism; this is an outright lie and propaganda in its vilest form. Have you seen the Hamas directive to those rioters to bring knives and guns to storm the fence? No, I doubt your crack “journalists” have done their research. Whoever approved that front page should be fired and should immediately publicly apologize to Ivanka Trump and those of us who support the embassy move and the state of Israel’s right to defend its borders. Winooski, Vt.: Your editorial blaming “terrorists” for the massacre of over 60 Palestinians by Israeli forces conveniently ignores two verifiable facts that render your claim that terrorists were setting bombs and so on untrue (“Hamas’ catastrophe,” May 15). The first fact is that there is a buffer zone of several hundred meters between the Israeli troops and the protesters — no one could throw a bomb that far. The second fact is that the only weaponized forces involved are the Israeli armed forces, which have amassed snipers, drones and armored vehicles to terrorize, maim and kill Palestinians. If there are terrorists to blame, they wear IDF uniforms and their leaders are named Netanyahu, Lieberman and Trump. Kew Gardens: It is shocking how blatantly the Daily News distorts reality in your opinion pages, allowing no kind of condemnation of innocent protester deaths in Gaza, instead placing articles that pin the blame on the victims. Shame on you. Gaza has been under occupation of Israel since 1967, so that means you have an imprisoned people who apparently have no right to even protest their situation. Shame on the Daily News for always pandering to Zionist thought and ideology in its opinion pages. Not all Jews agree with what Israel is doing, and your editorial pages should reflect that instead of consigning death and despair in the name of defending Israel at any cost. Forest Hills: Stating that 55 were “slaughtered” is misleading and false. The Palestinians who were shot were entering Israel armed, with the intention of killing Israelis. They were warned that if they proceeded to go past the checkpoint they would be shot. They disregarded the warning. Every country not only has the right, but the responsibility, to defend itself. Manhattan: Thanks. Daily News, you lived up to your true colors with Tuesday’s cover. No matter what this President does, you feel the need to criticize, even with a photo of his daughter, as if she condones violence! How many years have other Presidents tried but didn’t succeed at doing what seemed to be impossible, moving the U.S. Embassy? Even Sen. Chuck Schumer praised the move, calling it “long overdue.” Manhattan: The intent of the Hamas-provoked rioting in Gaza was to breach the border walls and have their soldiers (dressed as civilians) kill and kidnap Jews. What your news story got wrong, your editorial thankfully got right. Columbus, Ohio: Tuesday’s front page is a disturbing attempt to equate Ivanka to someone who supports the death of persons attacking and inciting violence. For the person who suggested this cover, no, this is not a juxtaposition between the oppressor and the oppressed. Even if you want to create that narrative, using Ivanka instead of her father is shameful, as if she were the driving force behind the deaths occurring at the border. Elmhurst: Thank you, Mayor de Blasio, for adding more stress to my subway commute Tuesday morning. I was sitting on the R train, reading and minding my own business, when a homeless man I never saw before accused me of getting him into trouble at a GETTY local convenience store. He quickly moved on when I raised my large umbrella in a defensive gesture. And thank you, Mayor, for allowing the homeless to run rampant in our city. I have seen more homeless on the streets since you took office. Brooklyn: More people are openly smoking pot on the streets of New York City, and I think this stinks, literally and figuratively. I hope these stoners are not driving. And I heard on the news that thousands of job positions are unfilled because employers cannot find enough drug-free hires. People, really, just say no to drugs. Bronx: Prof. Peter Markowitz can rest easy when he says that illegal immigrants should be allowed driver’s licenses (“Let undocumented immigrants drive,” May 14). No illegal immigrants will compete for his job. It is the working poor who will suffer from further competition. The American job market belongs to both native-born and legal immigrant workers. Norwalk, Conn.: I know I am not the only one to notice that Prince Harry constantly sticks his right hand underneath his suit jacket, since even his new wax museum figure depicts this pose, yet no one ever comments on it or explains it. Anyone?