New Study Outlines Path to Safeguard Quality Patient Care and Healthcare Jobs in Lynn

In January, after 50 years at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in Brooklyn, Clinical Laboratory Scientist Fritz Joseph hung up his lab coat for the last time. At retirement age and with Kingsbrook’s lab downsizing, Joseph decided to dedicate his life full-time to art.

As COVID-19 raged throughout New York City’s metropolitan area, there was an unexpected pilgrimage north to New York’s Hudson Valley. Real estate brokers touted economic renewal and a revived sense of close-knit, small-town community. Healthcare facilities proudly displayed banners proclaiming that “Healthcare Heroes Work Here.” It was a tableau of Rockwellian Americana.

For Jesse Aguirre, a transport messenger at St. John’s Episcopal Hospital in Queens, NY, COVID-19 work became personal in April, when the 29-year-old’s mother was admitted to the hospital with the virus. She died after a month-long struggle. As painful as it was to say goodbye, Aguirre also believes that God led him to the work at St. John’s, so he could be at his mother’s bedside.

What started as a hospital beautification project has become a historic initiative that’s transforming healthcare and addressing long existing disparities in Central and Eastern Brooklyn.

Healthcare workers are among the first in the nation to be eligible to take the new COVID-19 vaccine—which evidence shows will provide significant protection against the deadly disease. There are two vaccines currently available from Pfizer and from Moderna, and both use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.

Millions of Bandaided biceps signal a return to normalcy: the COVID-19 vaccine rollout is under way.

I received my first COVID-19 vaccination shot at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx on Jan. 20. Except for a slightly sore arm, I feel great. What’s more, I feel overwhelmingly relieved. As many of you know—and as I have openly discussed on our Tele Town Halls, Conference Calls and Zoom meetings—for the nine months, I’ve been isolating from my family, including my children and grandchildren, in an effort to protect them and myself. It’s been a difficult sacrifice, but to be sure a small one compared to sacrifices you have made on the front lines of the pandemic.

1199ers and community members from the Rochester, NY-area gathered on Zoom Jan. 18 for the 40th Annual Celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. New York State Assemblyman Desmond Meeks was this year’s keynote speaker. Meeks was joined on the program by singer Zahiya and the Womba Africa dance troupe.

Frustrated 1199ers at four New York City clinics run by Planned Parenthood of Greater New York (PPGNY) held informational pickets Jan. 7 to demand that management stop dragging their feet and settle a fair contract now.

Maya Wiley’s week may not have started well, just missing the threshold to qualify for public funds, but it’s ending with a bang: the largest union representing the city’s healthcare workers, 1199SEIU, announced Friday that they are giving their endorsement — and their mighty political muscle — to her mayoral campaign.