More than 200 nurses, families and guests came together for the Federation of Nurses/UFT’s annual Nurse Recognition Day awards dinner at Shanker Hall at union headquarters on May 9 to celebrate members’ hard work, patient advocacy and union activism. Twenty-one hospital and home care nurses were selected by their peers for going above and beyond in a health care landscape that puts profit ahead of patients.

“Our union salutes all these incredible nurses,” said UFT Vice President Anne Goldman, the head of the Federation of Nurses/UFT. “When you’re in a business to make money — which is what health care is — you do whatever benefits the bottom line. The problem is, the bottom line has nothing to do with patient care.”

Fanny Zeng, a medical/surgical nurse at NYU Langone–Brooklyn, won the RN Advocate Award for filing hundreds of short-staffing incident reports over a five-year period. “Because as we know, if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen,” said Goldman.

Zeng turned the appreciation back to her colleagues. “We advocate because we’re the heart and the soul of health care,” she said. “Every patient we take care of — we know we’ve touched their lives. That’s worth fighting for.”

Maria Scudiero, a medical/surgical nurse at NYU Langone–Brooklyn, who was recognized for being awarded a Healthcare Professional of the Year Award by NYSUT, had a message for colleagues who are considering leaving the profession. “Never give up,” she said. “There are so many facets to nursing. When you think you’re burned out, it just means it’s time to learn something new.”

Several honorees spoke of the “COVID generation gap” that diminished the ranks of nurses, and they encouraged attendees to welcome new members of the profession to the union.

“Share your light with others,” said Kaiser Mojica, who won the Nurse of Distinction Award for VNS Health. “Bring more people here next year. The union is here for everybody.”

In December 2023, the Federation of Nurses/UFT reached a groundbreaking arbitration settlement agreement on short-staffing with NYU Langone Hospital–Brooklyn that for the first time required the hospital to pay nurses for working short-staffed.

But Goldman emphasized that short-staffing remains an enormous issue. Despite a new safe-staffing law that went into effect in January 2022, hospitals are not implementing the appropriate nurse-to-patient ratios and are ignoring violations lodged by nurses and the union, she said.

“The world of health care is upside down,” said UFT President Michael Mulgrew. “The hospital executives are putting their profits and their bonuses above proper staffing at the hospitals.”

In early May, the Federation of Nurses/UFT demanded that the New York State Department of Health enforce its own law.

“We need to continue to fight for appropriate care for our patients,” Goldman said, “and for competitive salaries and good working conditions for our fellow nurses.”