HUDSON – U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has called on Columbia Memorial Health to work with 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East to address “the staff shortages plaguing the health care facility that serves the upper Hudson Valley.”
The senator urged the Hudson-based hospital to offer staff represented by the union “fair and equitable compensation and benefits comparable to other hospitals in the region.”
She said the facility’s “unwillingness to provide equitable compensation to works has led to the health care network losing valuable staffers to other hospitals, leaving local residents with lesser access to proper medical care.”
Gillibrand said as the only hospital between Kingston and Albany, Columbia Memorial staff serve more than 100,000 residents in “a health care desert” spanning Columbia, Greene and Dutchess counties.”
She said law wages and high turnover resulted in the hospital operating at a staff vacancy of over 200 bargaining unit members.
“This extreme understaffing has caused the closure of beds and clinics, decreasing the availability of the already limited health care services in the area.”
