{"id":9299,"date":"2025-10-20T20:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T20:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/9299\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T20:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T20:06:07","slug":"nysna-represented-nurses-employed-at-the-erie-county-medical-center-say-staffing-shortages-are-a-major-part-of-long-wait-times-in-the-emergency-room","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/9299\/","title":{"rendered":"NYSNA-Represented Nurses Employed At The Erie County Medical Center Say \u2018Staffing Shortages Are A Major Part Of Long Wait Times\u2019 In The Emergency Room"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/NYSNA-ECMC.jpg\" alt=\"NYSNA-Represented Nurses Employed At The Erie County Medical Center Say \u2018Staffing Shortages Are A Major Part Of Long Wait Times\u2019 In The Emergency Room \"\/>\t<\/p>\n<p>Viktoria Hallikaar\u00a0at Spectrum News reports that when you\u2019re facing a medical emergency, time is of the essence &#8211; but in the Emergency Room (ER), wait times can often be hours long. Despite many getting into the medical field to help people, some say they face issues that impede that work. New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA)-represented Registered Nurses (RNs) Lona DeNisco and Crystal Knihinicki &#8211; who work at Buffalo\u2019s Erie County Medical Center (ECMC), recently told Spectrum News how ECMC can do better by its patients and its Nurses: \u201cWe&#8217;re the ones doing the care at the bedside. If you don&#8217;t put (resources) into the lower part of your pyramid, it&#8217;s going to collapse, right? You can&#8217;t keep building on the top and let the bottom collapse.\u201d According to\u00a0HospitalStats.org,\u00a0ECMC has an average ER wait time of five hours and 15 minutes, the sixth-longest wait time in New York State. DeNisco and Knihinicki say those numbers check out. \u201cLast year, I think we had seen like 70,000 (patients) annually and that&#8217;s still increasing,\u201d said DeNisco. The two RNs point to staff shortages, especially among Nurses, and ineffective policies for increased wait times.<\/p>\n<p>To Watch Spectrum News\u2019 Labor News Report, Go To: <a href=\"https:\/\/spectrumlocalnews.com\/nys\/buffalo\/news\/2025\/09\/25\/ecmc-nurses--staffing-shortages-major-part-of-long-er-wait-times?fbclid=IwY2xjawNjSmpleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFVcjc5TGVOVFVjZ2gySHZUAR5Rapl9BBCBT1jrp2hZF9EW5i-3Hwq3YDfdb5X9pQowaSOxZK3OK1gBdH1jeQ_aem_19BTv6fRWZmd0XURph1tSw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ECMC nurses: Staffing shortages major part of long ER waits<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Viktoria Hallikaar\u00a0at Spectrum News reports that when you\u2019re facing a medical emergency, time is of the essence &#8211;&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,4241,4242,4243],"class_list":{"0":"post-9299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news","11":"tag-labor-news","12":"tag-western-new-york","13":"tag-wny"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}