State steps in at Albany Med
Cancer ward ordered to change protocols after third COVID outbreak
The state Health Department ordered changes Friday to coronavirus protocols on Albany Medical Center Hospital’s oncology floor after a third COVID -19 outbreak in three months, according to the New
York State Nurses Association.
The action came after an anonymous nurse’s complaint to the state last month, said NYSNA, which noted that the outbreaks have, in all, sickened more than 50 patients and staff members.
In an interview Monday, David Pratt, an occupational health and safety representative with NYSNA, said that the move was unusual for the state and that he wasn’t sure what specific measures the state would take.
However, he said he had several conversations with nurses from the hospital since Friday.
“It sounded like they immediately ordered some changes, like restoring private rooms, testing and so on,” he said.
In the Jan. 18 letter to the state Department of Health, obtained by the Times Union, an Albany Med nurse begs for help, laying out some of the staff ’s issues with how the hospital has handled the pandemic
and cancer patients.
“There are only a handful of RNS on my unit who have not tested positive,” the letter reads. “I am imploring the Department of Health to take action now to protect the lives and health of the cancer patients that I care for and the RNS and care partners providing that care.”
Albany Medical Center did not return requests for comment.
When the Times Union requested comment from the Health Department about whether it has taken any actions on Albany Med’s oncology floor, DOH spokeswoman Jill Montag replied: “During this unprecedented pandemic, ensuring hospital infection control practices are being followed is a top priority. As this may be the subject of an ongoing investigation, we cannot comment further.”
In the past, the hospital’s management has defended its infection control practices. Officials have said coronavirus cases at the hospital have been brought in by staff who were infected outside their workplace, rather than the virus being spread inside the hospital by patients.
The hospital and its nurses have been in a lengthy labor battle after the hospital’s nurses voted to unionize in April 2018. In December the nurses walked out for a 24-hour strike to protest working conditions in the pandemic. The union also filed a complaint with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The nurse’s letter to the state in January cited many of the same issues that led to the December strike — a lack of personal protective equipment, not properly separating positive or potentially positive patients from others, management not listening to staff — as also contributing to the three outbreaks on the oncology floor.
The first outbreak happened Thanksgiving week and affected 12 staff and eight patients, according to the letter. A second outbreak began in early January, involving 12 more staffers and at least nine patients.
According to the nurses union, a total of 28 staff members and 26 patients have been infected. At least nine of those infections have occurred in the past 10 days. It’s unclear if any patients died from the disease as a result of the outbreaks.
“The concern here is they didn’t listen to the nurses,” Pratt said.
Pratt said he believes that the state decided to act after the hospital’s oncology floor saw two outbreaks and nothing changed.
“Clearly that mechanism for protecting patients is entirely broken,” he said. “There is no accountability; there’s no analysis of what happened and what do we know. It’s not a blame game; it’s what do we need to do in the future to do better.”
Among the issues the nurse details in the letter are oncology staff “floating ” or working multiple units, including the COVID -19 care unit. At least twice, cancer patients required resuscitation from staff who didn’t have proper PPE, the letter states, and one of them later tested positive for coronavirus.
“Multiple patients have tested positive after being housed in a room with another positive patient,” the nurse wrote.
The complaints were brought to the Albany Med’s epidemiology department, nursing supervision and others but were ignored, according to the letter.