I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Friday, December 3rd.

We continue now on the coming of Omicron and the hospital staffing shortage that was already rising as an issue

even before Omicron was discovered and even before the pandemic began. With us now is Pat Kane,

an RN, representing the New York State Nurses Association, the Union. Pat, thanks so much for

joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Thanks so much for having me, Brian. And we have so many good callers coming in. I see we have a recruiter for nurses on the line. We will get to you. Other nurses calling in. Be patient on the

phones for folks. Let's hear from Pat a little bit first. So there was a nurses protest this

week outside to Mount Sinai Hospital locations.

What were you protesting? We're protesting the crisis that nurses are experiencing with the hospital

staffing right now. And really their inability to provide the kind of care that they want to provide to their patients and their

community. There was another recent protest outside New York Presbyterian. I see same issues.

Same issues. A lot of vacancies. The three hospitals that we were at had actually had hiring freezes after the surge of the pandemic and have a lot of open positions.

So why would they have a hiring freeze in light of a staff shortage?

What's your take on what your employers are up to?

So for many years, Brian, in the health care sector, you know, had adopted a just-in-time approach to everything from, to everything from supply.

Somebody calling you to say, Pat, I hear you on the radio.

I know.

I'm so sorry.

Go ahead. I'm muted this. so sorry. I thought I muted this.

These devices don't cooperate.

So hospitals had really adopted a just-in-time approach to everything from supplies to training to staffing.

They talk about staffing to census, right?

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