Committee on Hospitals

This bill would require the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene to prepare a plan to improve nurse staffing levels at hospitals. The Department would prepare the plan in consultation with the Health and Hospitals Corporation and nurses employed by city hospitals. The plan would include a strategy to reduce the nurse-to-patient ratio, suggest a safe nurse-to-patient ratio, and address ways to increase and strengthen the nursing workforce. The report would be due to the Speaker of the Council and the Mayor by January 1, 2024.

This bill would establish an Office of Organ Transplant Equity (“Office”) within the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The Office would be responsible for providing, or partnering with organ transplant centers to provide, organ transplant care coordination services to guide people seeking an organ transplant through the organ transplant process. In addition, the Office would be required to distribute informational materials about transplant care and access to people seeking a transplant and to host outreach events, and to offer informational materials and trainings to healthcare providers involved in transplant care. The Office would also be required to compile an annual report detailing its activities and recommending ways to improve access and medical care relating to transplants in New York City.

This bill would require the department of health and mental hygiene to convene quarterly meetings on efforts to combat maternal mortality taking place in the city focusing on issues hospitals are facing and how to best mitigate them. Stakeholders to be invited to the quarterly meetings include health and hospitals corporation, the chair of the committee on health and the chair of the committee on hospitals.