Sarah Dowd, a neurocritical care ICU nurse practitioner and vice president of Kings County Hospital’s Local Bargaining Unit, was suspended without pay on October 9 and barred from every NYC Health+Hospitals facility, according to amNewYork. The report said no formal charges had been filed. Dowd’s colleagues say the suspension followed visits she made on her day off to check on coworkers and raise patient-safety concerns amid chronic understaffing.
Nurses with the New York State Nurses Association gathered Thursday outside NYC Health+Hospitals/Kings County for an emergency rally and press conference, demanding Dowd’s reinstatement, back pay and protection for nurses who speak up about patient safety, according to amNewYork. The nurses argue that Dowd’s actions were protected union activity and that the suspension could discourage organizing around staffing standards. The report said hospital management’s suspension letter alleged misconduct but gave no further explanation.
NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said Dowd was suspended without pay for advocating for tools to improve safety and patient care, according to Brooklyn Paper. NYSNA Executive Director Pat Kane expressed profound disappointment in NYC Health+Hospitals over the suspension, Brooklyn Paper reports, and said the system should be working with NYSNA nurses to address chronic understaffing rather than disciplining patient advocates. Kane also pointed to a broader strain on the safety net, noting that thousands of immigrant healthcare workers have lost their jobs while uninsured and underinsured patients may increasingly turn to city hospitals.
A Decade of Service, Then a Sudden Bar From Every Facility
Dowd has worked at NYC Health+Hospitals for almost 10 years, and her suspension bars her from every H+H facility citywide, Brooklyn Paper notes. Jack McShane, a NYSNA member and Kings County emergency department nurse, characterized the suspension as an effort to curb union activity. He said emergency-department nurses often care for eight to nine patients at a time, and sometimes 12 or 13, despite a five-patient maximum in the union contract and New York State staffing law, according to amNewYork.
Kings County Hospital’s emergency department is described as one of the busiest in the country, where patients often spend days on stretchers waiting for an inpatient bed to open up, per the same account. Marie Telusma, an ambulatory care nurse who has worked at Kings County for nearly 13 years, called the suspension extreme and unjust. She warned it could set a dangerous precedent for any union nurse who speaks up about conditions on the floor.
Petition Gathers Steam as Staffing Fight Widens
A petition demanding Dowd’s immediate reinstatement and compensation for her lost wages has drawn nearly 1,000 signatures from Kings County Hospital Center nurses, ancillary staff and physicians, according to the NYC Central Labor Council. Nurses say they have ramped up their safe-staffing advocacy in recent weeks, increasingly leaning on their union contract and New York State law to push hospital management to enforce staffing standards, per the same report.
State Sen. Jabari Brisport, a Brooklyn state senator, and David Orkin, a New York State Assembly candidate, were present at the rally, Brooklyn Paper reports. Brisport said nurses and coalition members previously helped keep SUNY Downstate open when it faced possible closure, a shutdown that would have placed enormous additional strain on Kings County Hospital. NYSNA, which represents about 45,000 members across New York state, has announced plans to file an improper-practice charge against NYC Health+Hospitals, as noted by amNewYork. Under New York Civil Service Law §209-a, deliberate interference with or coercion of public employees exercising protected rights, along with discrimination meant to discourage participation in an employee organization, is defined as an improper practice by a public employer, according to the New York State Senate.
Staffing Rules on the Books, Capital Dollars on the Way
New York regulations require hospitals to maintain a clinical staffing committee that develops and oversees an annual staffing plan, including unit- and shift-specific guidelines, ratios, matrices or grids, according to the New York Codes, Rules and Regulations. Kings County Hospital, a 639-bed acute care teaching hospital in Central Brooklyn serving more than 700,000 patients a year, recently received $8 million in city capital funding: $5 million for two emergency-department trauma bays and $3 million to upgrade its primary care practice, according to NYC Health + Hospitals.
What staffing plans and patient-volume records show
New York State Department of Health guidance says hospitals must submit annual clinical staffing plans through its HERDS survey, with staffing information for each patient-care unit and work shift, including nurse assignments and the nurses and ancillary staff scheduled. That requirement describes what plans must report; the records cited here do not establish Kings County’s specific unit-by-unit staffing figures. See the Department of Health guidance. The NYC Health + Hospitals release cited above, dated October 1, 2025, reported that Kings County’s emergency department saw more than 125,000 visits in the preceding year.
This is not the first time staffing tensions have boiled over at city hospitals: thousands of nurses across several New York City hospitals went on strike earlier this year amid disputes that included staffing levels and patient safety, PIX11 reported. That outlet said it reached out to NYC Health and Hospitals/Kings County multiple times about Dowd’s suspension but was told the system was not immediately available to comment. Brooklyn Paper has also reached out to NYC Health+Hospitals for comment and is awaiting a response.
