After ending a longstanding dispute in July that has put new owners into place at Brunswick Hospital Center, the hospital has now settled a contract with its 166 registered nurses. The three-year pact will help improve salaries, stabilize health benefits and establish procedures to ensure that the hospital’s nurses are treated fairly, said the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA).

"While this agreement will help ensure that Brunswick Hospital’s registered nurses will be receiving competitive salaries, it also helps the hospital because it helps to stabilize issues and resolve problems so it is more than just about giving nurses raises," said Mark Genovese, a spokesman for NYSNA.

Dr. Amar Jit Singh, the hospital’s owner, agreed that the contract is good for the health-care facility, which is struggling back to health after several years of fiscal problems. "For too long we have lost good nurses because we were not competitive," said Singh. "This will help us attract quality nurses—and keep them, which is good for the hospital and the patients."

Under the agreement, the contract put into place formal salary structure that set the base salary for all registered nurses at $48,000 a year, retroactive to July 1, and an increase to $51,941, by the contract’s expiration June 30, 2007. Registered nurses working in critical care units, on-call and on the evening, night and weekend shifts will receive additional compensation. The contract also establishes an experience scale, a preceptor program, and a bonus plan for recruiting RNs.

"The nurses at Brunswick are still not among the highest paid on Long Island but they are competitive now and that will help," said Genovese.

Management will provide $63,000 a year to a pool to reduce out-of-pocket costs to nurses for health-care premiums and seniority and grievance and arbitration procedures will be established to help protect RNs workplace rights. Labor management committees will be established to maintain a dialogue on workplace and practice issues.

As part of the agreement, hospital and NY NYSNA representatives will begin a joint study on developing safe RN-to-patient staffing ratios for each unit and RNs will have the right to file protests when they believe their staffing assignments aren’t safe.

Finally, the contract prohibits the hospital from floating RNs to units for which they have not been oriented and limits the hospital’s ability to require RNs to work overtime. Any RNs who are mandated will be guaranteed nine hours off between shifts.

The health-care facility signed a contract with its employees covered by Local 1199 in the spring.

In related news, the hospital reports that the JCHO, a nationally based accreditation agency, has completed its review of Brunswick Hospital and given the facility a positive rating. "One of the comments I heard from the inspectors was that everyone here seems to have worked together to overcome the crisis," said Singh.