With days to go until the New York state budget is finalized, upstate hospitals are concerned that their priorities may not make the final cut. These hospitals face special challenges since COVID-19 hit. For example, there are over 20,000 open positions at upstate hospitals from Albany to Buffalo.

Gary Fitzgerald is president and CEO of the Iroquois Healthcare Alliance which represents 50 hospitals across 32 upstate counties. 

“We have 20,000 vacancies and a registered nurse vacancy rate of about 26%, which is up from 7% from before the pandemic,” Fitzgerald said. “We are actively recruiting for those nurses. We are paying outrageous numbers for agency nurses.”

Agency nurses come in from outside the community and aren’t employed by hospitals. 

“We’ve seen rates from $100 an hour to $225 over the last year. And hospital budgets are just breaking because of that,” he explained.

There are several priorities in the budget that Fitzgerald is pushing for, including a 7% increase in the Medicaid reimbursement rate. Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget increased that rate by 1%.

“It’s a big number for the state of New York,” Fitzgerald said of the 7% request. “But we also know that this year is a year when they can afford it.”

Other priorities include $100 million in direct payment funding for rural hospitals; $10 million in workforce investment; and $500,000 for health care workers to learn about job opportunities in rural parts of the state.

“For years, we’ve run a program out of Iroquois called the ‘Take a Look’ program where the Legislature funded our ability to bring residents and medical students from New York City where we have the best and largest teaching hospitals in the world, to … Syracuse and tour them around for a couple of days to show them we actually have health care in upstate New York and technology in upstate New York and it’s a nice place to live.”

The “Take a Look” program was not funded last year.

Just on Wednesday, the Alice Hyde Medical Center in Malone, New York announced it would close its maternity ward, citing a lack of deliveries.

In September, Lewis County General Hospital shut down its maternity ward because it didn’t have enough staffing.