Shots Needed — & Nurses Are Out

The city’s Health Department plans to contract with a Middletown-based nurse temp agency to make up for a rash of unexpected vacancies and illnesses among city nurses — right at flu-shot crunch time.

During Monday night’s regular monthly meeting of the Board of Alders Finance Committee in the Aldermanic Chambers on the second floor of City Hall, Health Department Fiscal Administrative Assistant Pamela DeZutter laid out the nurse staffing problems her department is facing in the middle of this year’s flu season.

She said the Health Department currently has seven nursing vacancies due to a mixture of retirements, injuries, illnesses, and departures for school or other jobs. Five of those vacancies are in full-time public health nurse positions, one is in the clinic public health nurse position, and one in the clinic intake clerk position. That’s out of 47 total nursing positions.

DeZutter’s pitch to the alders on Monday night was to transfer $60,000 from the Health Department budget’s per diem line item to a new contract line item, so that her department can formalize an agreement with the Middletown-based nurse temp agency Delta‑T Group that would last at least through the end of flu season in March.

The aldermanic committee voted unanimously in support of the proposed $60,000 fund transfer, which now goes to the full board for a final vote.

DeZutter said the department has already been working with Delta‑T nurses since this summer on a per diem basis for anticipated nurse staffing needs at summer school programs.

But, she said, the department needs a formal contract with the agency in order to pay Delta‑T nurses for the part-time and temporary work they have been doing for the city’s flu and Hepatitis A onsite clinics in the absence of city full-time nurses.

The department currently owes the agency around $30,000 for temporary and part-time services already rendered, DeZutter said. She estimated that the $60,000 requested in the intradepartmental fund transfer should be enough to cover temp nursing service needs for the rest of the flu season.

“We owe Delta‑T money for helping with the flu clinics we’ve been doing at City Hall, homeless shelters, and senior centers,” she said.

In an Oct. 15 letter sent to Board of Alders President Tyisha Walker-Myers, city Health Department Director Byron Kennedy outlined the scope of the nurse staffing problems to date.

“This year the New Haven Health Department has experienced nurse staffing issues that have greatly impacted our work,” he wrote.

He wrote that, as of Oct. 15, three school nurses were out on short-term disability; two school nurse positions were vacant; one school nurse was out on workers compensation; the department’s clinic nurse had been hospitalized for a weekend; and a health assistant had submitted a Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) application in advance of a scheduled surgery.

“This letter is to request a transfer of $60,000 from the Per Diem line item in the Health Department budget to ensure the continuation of our work,” he wrote. He wrote that the department has engaged the services of the Delta‑T Group to help cover nurse vacancies in city schools, and to assist in the delivery of flu and Hepatitis A vaccines at onsite clinics that the department had health at senior housing facilities, homeless shelters, and City Hall.

“The Health Department is mandated to vaccinate residents, including those who are homeless, against these viruses,” he wrote.

On Monday night, DeZutter explained the department’s nurse staffing needs have gotten even worse since Kennedy’s Oct. 15 letter. She said the department has permanent or temporary vacancies in five nursing positions, one clinic nurse position, and one clinic intake clerk position.

She said the department has been working with Delta‑T to hire temp nurses because it does not want to have to pull from the city’s 44 budgeted school nurse positions to cover work at the flu and Hepatitis A onsite clinics. But in order to pay the temp nurses for their part-time work, she said, the department needs to have a contract with the agency.

“Have you had any conversations with Delta‑T about a contract?” Finance Committee Chair and Edgewood Alder Evette Hamilton asked.

DeZutter said that the department has spoken with Delta‑T about entering a nursing contract, and that the city had even engaged in a contract with Delta‑T several years ago for prior temp nursing service needs.

After the hearing, DeZutter said that the city Health Department has administered roughly 1,300 doses of flu vaccine so far this season, which started in September and goes through March. She said the department anticipates administering another 700 doses before the season is up.

She said residents can get flu shots at the department’s public health clinic on the first floor of 54 Meadow St., or at one of the temporary onsite clinics that the department hosts at locations like City Hall, the Ecuadorian Consulate on Church Street, city homeless shelters, senior centers, and elsewhere. She said that city-administered flu shot cost around $27 each.

“It seems that the work that these temporary nurses are doing is important work that needs to be done,” Finance Committee Vice-Chair and Westville Alder Adam Marchand said. ​“We should move funds from one part of their budget to another part of their budget so that they can be appropriately paid.”