AlbanyMed submits corrective action plan to state

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Albany Medical Center has submitted its plan to the state, on how the hospital will address alleged deficiencies in staffing. It's in response to the recent Department of Health staffing report.

NEWS10 talked to nurses about that report and has the latest on the labor dispute and their contract negotiations.

Staffing at the hospital continues to be the crux of the ongoing contract negotiations and the topic of a DOH investigation that the hospital is formally responding to on Monday.

AlbanyMed CEO Dr. Dennis McKenna addressed the DOH staffing report last Thursday. He said they had begun a dialogue to discuss the reports findings.

“Many times, and this is my own lived, personal experience, those findings will be nullified once further investigation reveals that those issues had been mischaracterized or they don’t exist at all,” said McKenna.

During that October 3 press conference he said the discrepancy report was being presented to the clinical staffing committee. October 7 was the deadline for the hospital to submit a response to the DOH outlining its corrective actions.

“I think that we are presenting it to the staffing committee as is required. We are doing it exactly the way it’s supposed to be done. We are sharing it with them. It is collaborative,” said McKenna.

However, a member of that committee, RN Jaimie Alaxanian, said they were presented with the hospital’s corrective plan and revised it minimally. She did not feel it was collaborative because they were presented with information they had no ability to fact check. 

“We had a half hour meeting today, just to sort of wrap it up because today is the deadline and they will be submitting something. But I don’t agree with the plan because we didn’t see the full report. You know the numbers he references to you guys, I didn’t see those numbers at all. So I don’t know. I just did not see the staffing report,” said Alaxanian.

In a statement an AlbanyMed spokesperson said: "We are submitting our response today. We met with our clinical staffing committee twice now. Our discussions were collaborative, and our response to the DOH incorporates the committee’s feedback."

Alaxanian said she wants the staffing issue corrected because they need to hire more nurses.

“I want people to want to work there and want to be cared for there,” said Alaxanian. “It feels like we are trying to negotiate a contract and our issue with the contract is it’s not going to attract the nurses we need to care for the patients that we care for.”

She did echo what McKenna said last week, that they are getting closer to negotiating a contract that works for all sides. The next contract negotiation meeting is scheduled for October 15.