ER-R OF HOSP WAYS
Nurses joined by pols in protest of Montefiore crowding
Politicians and nurses repeated their call Tuesday for the Montefiore Medical Center to upgrade patient care in its overcrowded emergency rooms.
“Patient experience should lie at the core of American health care,” City Council member Ritchie Torres told a news conference outside the hospital’s Westchester Square campus in the Bronx.
“When you’re a health care institution like Montefiore, you should ask yourself a simple question: Are we treating our patients with the respect and care they deserve?”
As reported by the Daily News in recent months, ER patients at Montefiore have found themselves stashed in public hallways rather than inside a room for treatment. One patient recounted spending the night in a busy corridor alongside a mop and a bucket, while another paid $250 a day for a cot beneath a blindingly bright ceiling light.
The practice is so commonplace that staffers refer to the al fresco assignments as “hallway admissions.”
Union nurses at the Tuesday event chanted “Patients over profits!” and “Open the beds!” in support of better handling of ER admissions.
A hospital spokesman, in a statement Tuesday, said Montefiore was “committed to working” with city officials, Bronx health care providers and other local partners to resolve the issue.
“Montefiore is continually working to improve the flow of patients, and our length of stay at all three campuses is down when compared to this time last year,” the spokesman said.
Last year, the Montefiore ERs handled more than 350,000 patients — more than any other hospital in the city.
Torres, joined by members of the New York State Nurses Association and the Community Board 11 Health Committee, announced the opening of an investigative hotline giving patients and nurses direct contact with the City Council.
“Make no mistake,” said Torres. “Hallway admissions is not a form of care. It is a form of neglect …. Now is not the time for excuse making. “Now is the time for accountability and problem solving.”
Al D’Angelo of CB11 complained that residents of the Bronx were entitled to the same level of treatment as any and all New Yorkers.
“Why is it that the Bronx deserves a lower quality care then they do in other parts of the state?” he asked.