An independent arbitrator has held NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn financially responsible when the hospital short-staffed one of its units.

Arbitrator Howard Edelman found the hospital routinely violated an agreed-upon staffing ratio of six Registered Nurses to care for 30 patients per shift - a 1:5 ratio - in one of its medical-surgical units last year.

Edelman ruled that for each missing nurse, the hospital must split the average nurse’s shift salary among the nurses who worked that shift.

"NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn has put patients at risk with their chronic understaffing. Patient safety has not moved NYU to solve this issue. So, perhaps this ruling, which hits them in their pocketbook, will motivate them," said Anne Goldman, head of the Federation of Nurses/UFT, which represents roughly 4,000 nurses in New York City including 1,000 nurses at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn. The Federation also represents 16,000 nurses in New York State.

In his Dec. 1 ruling, Edelman found that the unit was short-staffed on 47 occasions between May and August 2022. The arbitrator recommended using the average salary for the unit in his remedy. The average salary of a UFT nurse in the unit is between $750 and $800 per shift.

The union is awaiting arbitration rulings in similar short-staffing cases involving two other of the hospital's units and has similar short-staffing grievances pending for 13 other units at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn. The union's position is that the same financial responsibility be applied to the hospital in all short-staffing cases.

The arbitrator’s ruling, said Mark Collins, the director of the UFT Grievance Department, is precedent-setting because it establishes a financial responsibility for NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn. "If the hospital does not believe it has a moral responsibility to safely staff its units, then perhaps being held financially accountable will help them do it," Collins said.

The Federation of Nurses/UFT has fought for safe staffing at this hospital on various fronts. The union has filed more than 3,800 violations of contractual staffing levels at NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn in the past two years. This past summer the union was the first to submit staffing violations under the state’s 2021 Safe Staffing for Quality Care law. The state Health Department is currently investigating the more than 200 staffing violations the union filed against NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn.

"When a patient comes to an NYU Langone medical facility, they expect a certain level of care. I think patients and their families would be stunned if they learned how NYU Langone Hospital- Brooklyn was playing Russian Roulette with their care by not staffing medical-surgical units correctly," said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers. "Hopefully, this ruling brings the hospital's management to their senses."