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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Carmen de Leon, President of Local 768, on NYC Health + Hospitals Infrastructure and Medicaid Cuts
2:14:32
·
6 min
Carmen de Leon, President of Local 768 representing NYC Healthcare employees, testified on the importance of infrastructure funding for NYC Health + Hospitals and the potential impact of Medicaid cuts. She emphasized the critical role of public hospitals in providing care to underserved communities and the challenges faced by healthcare workers due to staffing shortages and aging infrastructure.
- Urged the council to restore infrastructure funding, citing examples of air conditioning failure at Harlem Hospital and flooding at Woodhull Hospital
- Highlighted the generational care provided by public hospitals and the need for expanded services and job creation
- Expressed concern about the impact of potential Medicaid cuts on public hospitals and their ability to serve vulnerable populations
Carmen de Leon
2:14:32
So, thank you chair Justin Brannen and chair Mercedes Narcisse.
2:14:38
I am Carmen de Leon.
2:14:39
I am the president of Local seven sixty eight, the New York City Healthcare employees.
2:14:45
I am here today Actually, I want us back up.
2:14:48
Really want to thank doctor Katz for his leadership.
2:14:52
When I first came back to health and hospitals in 2014 as a per diem, basically working agency, there were three hospitals slated for closure back then and Harlem Hospital which is my my hospital, I call it my hospital because anytime I'm offered to work per diem, I go to Harlem.
2:15:15
I am, currently on EO 75 police time from Harlem, and I will be returning, at the end of my term, because that's my hospital.
2:15:25
I grew up in West Harlem.
2:15:27
My father was, in East Harlem, so that is my passion for Harlem.
2:15:32
But I do wanna thank doctor Katz because he saved not only Harlem but Coney Island, and I forgot what the other hospital is.
2:15:40
But today, I'm here to on behalf of my members who cover anything from dental assistants to physical therapy to the revenue gatherers of the medical record specialists and many more.
2:15:54
I have about 45 titles in the hospitals alone.
2:15:59
The first thing I would like to urge the council is to be able to restore as much as possible the infrastructure funding.
2:16:07
That infrastructure funding is important.
2:16:10
Harlem Hospital, I believe it was either this past summer or the summer before, their air conditioning went down.
2:16:16
And my members were calling and I have to say the hospital and George Leconte, they worked very hard to get that restored back, but it impacted services and it impacted the health care of the members that were working in the hospital.
2:16:32
The the temperatures were up to like 85 degrees in some situations within the hospitals.
2:16:38
The other hospital that was impacted was back in October of twenty twenty three when Woodhall was flooded out.
2:16:46
My members stayed to help transport patients out of the ICU and also stayed to work under those conditions because there were some patients that were so critical in the ICU they could not move them, so they had to operate on backup generators.
2:17:00
So that's really important that that funding for the infrastructure is restored, excuse me, is restored as much as possible.
2:17:08
The other thing that I came here to testify is that everything that we do with regard to infrastructure, it is a priority because it has a dyno a domino effect on my members and the communities at large.
2:17:24
Because if we can't offer the services to them, they are not gonna go outside of their community.
2:17:30
They're gonna stay there.
2:17:31
I can tell you at Harlem I had four generations once at one time in the asthma room with me.
2:17:37
Actually, it was three and then the child was in the pediatric side.
2:17:42
So our communities use these hospitals.
2:17:45
This is generational care that we are giving at these hospitals.
2:17:48
If we can expand by supporting the infrastructure, that's a great thing.
2:17:53
It also helps my members because it generates more jobs for specialties.
2:17:59
So for instance, nursing, there's still, and I was at the state when we testified for this, for safer staffing levels.
2:18:08
Those levels are not able to be followed and that impacts every single one, especially me, I'm a respiratory therapist.
2:18:15
So I've worked in hospitals, not just Harlem but other city hospitals, and I've had my members come to me tell me in an ICU because they didn't have enough staffing or because people called out because they were burnt out, they had two nurses working in a 14 bedded unit trying to get nurses in.
2:18:32
That impacts my members as well because we're obligated to be able to take up the care for any ventilator patients because the nurses can't do it alone, the doctors can't do it alone.
2:18:43
I think that the last part of it is is that I've heard a lot of testimony today about how the privates would send members of a community around the block to the city hospital.
2:18:57
I worked in that situation.
2:18:59
I was we used to work at NCB and at that time back in 02/2002, that hospital that's around the corner from NCB would not accept Medicaid at all.
2:19:10
And so I can tell you I had one patient come into my asthma room, he was having an MI, and they discharged him from that other hospital to bring him around the corner.
2:19:21
So I think that we support the infrastructure of the hospitals and that funding for that, we can still prevent that.
2:19:28
A lot of my members and a lot of the communities don't go to those other hospitals because they don't know if they're gonna be able to be seen or if they're if they cut Medicaid, those hospitals even though we have, you know, you have to see somebody, those hospitals by practice will, excuse me, will turn around and send that individual back to the city hospital.
2:19:50
It's an expense, and so they're not going to say that, oh no, we accept everybody, because what they're going to do is, oh no, we can't treat you, and if they are immigrants, people of color, those that are not necessarily educated to their rights as a health for health care, they will leave and they will take the AMA and go around the corner.
2:20:12
I just, you know, I came here with a whole bunch of other things to say, but really I am concerned with the Medicaid cuts that happened this morning.
2:20:22
It is going to increase that population that will be seen at the city hospitals.
2:20:27
It is going to increase the amount of money that will be drawn out of the health hospital system because of the inability for citizens to pay or migrants.
2:20:39
It doesn't matter.
2:20:40
We have some of our own citizens that do not have Medicaid or they lost their Medicaid for whatever reasons and they come to the public hospitals.
2:20:49
So I think it's kind of naive for us to think that, you know, this will not impact or draw out money from the the public hospitals.
2:20:58
I work at Harlem.
2:20:59
We have a huge huge number Did