Public Employee Press

40th Anniversary
Historic milestone for union nurses

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

With a mission of protecting the health needs of New Yorkers, the nurses and other professional workers represented by Local 436 provide preventive care throughout the city.

They treat ill and injured children in the public schools and help parents keep their kids healthy with regular checkups at Child Health Clinics in the public hospitals.

Public Health Nurses were among the first responders to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. At Ground Zero, they set up shelters, provided first aid to injured civilians and emergency workers, and equipped ambulance workers with respiratory masks.

“We are on the front line in the delivery of health care services to New Yorkers,” said Judith Arroyo, the president of Local 436, the United Federation of Nurses and Epidemiologists.

On Oct. 11, 200 people attended a gala at the Astoria World Manor in Queens to celebrate the local’s 40th anniversary and pay tribute to the city’s dedicated Public Health Nurses, Nurse Practitioners, Pediatric Nurse Associates and Public Health Epidemiologists.

Local 436 Vice President Cheryl Whatley and Assistant Director Maynard Anderson of the DC 37 Professional Division welcomed members and guests, Beverly Thompson gave the invocation, Martha Felder offered a champagne toast and Tish Williams spoke of the local’s history.

That evening, Local 436 also marked the 100th year of the city’s child health care clinics. Arroyo spoke of the achievements of honored retirees Williams, Theresa DeBonis, Barbara Smith, Barbara Ford, Lois Harris, Sandra Wiggins, Eula Bryan and Paula J. Bloome.

The roots of public nursing stretch back to 1902, Williams said, when the New York City Board of Health hired Lina Rogers Struthers as the first school nurse in North America.

In her first month, Rogers reduced absenteeism by treating communicable diseases. Her success led school districts throughout the country to hire nurses.

The first child health clinics, which offered free milk, were established in 1908. They have provided preventive care for children from low-income families ever since. The clinics spread citywide in the following three decades, adding dental services and rehabilitation for children with cerebral palsy.

Nurses formed the Professional Public Health NursesAssociation in the 1950s. After a bitter contract fight with the city in the 1960s, members felt they would be better off with a union rather than a professional association. So, on March 28, 1968, they voted to affiliate with District Council 37.

Later landmarks included adding Epidemiologists to the membership in 1975, establishing a program to allow Health Dept. nurses to study at Hunter College at reduced tuition, and maintaining union rights for nurses at child health clinics taken over by the Health and Hospitals Corp. And the local fought for extending school nurses’ pay and health and benefit coverage to the entire year.

“As union members in a new millennium, we must continue our tradition of excellence as caring professionals dedicated to meeting the health needs of all New Yorkers,” Williams said.