Reporting by Kerria Weaver, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
For the second time in a year, Rochester General Hospital faces a $100,000 penalty for low nurse staffing.
An independent arbitrator ruled Rochester General has to pay a $100,000 penalty to registered nurses represented by the Rochester Union of Nurses & Allied Professionals under a staffing provision of their contract. The understaffing came in Q2 2025.
Previously, for Q1 2025 in 2025, RGH agreed before arbitration to pay $100,000 for understaffing registered nurses under the RUNAP union contract.
According to an analysis by RUNAP, the hospital had fewer registered nurses than the minimum required on over 90% of 12-hour shifts from April to June 2025.
“Nurses don’t want this money,” said RUNAP Vice President Gillian Kingsley in a statement. “We just want our hospital to be safe. That’s what our patients deserve. In Women’s Care, we deal with laboring mothers, sick babies in the NICU and other sensitive patients. They deserve better.”
As RUNAP plans to continue monitoring staffing levels and enforcing their contract, they are also asking patients, families and community members to share their experiences with hospital staffing.
Rochester General responds
Rochester Regional Health provided the following statement:
“Patient safety and nurse workload are our highest priorities. Rochester General Hospital continues to hire and retain highly qualified, compassionate and talented nurses, hiring 266 in 2025 alone, at a time when healthcare systems across the country are facing significant staffing and recruiting challenges. Our continued commitment to supporting our nurses helps ensure that they can continue to deliver the care our patients deserve.
In addition, RGH has taken great strides to remain adaptable to meet changes in patient volume and acuity. Importantly, the parties recognized during negotiations for the current collective bargaining agreement with the RGH nurses that unavoidable staffing shortages can occur in the healthcare environment and specifically contemplated the use of additional pay as one of the tools available to address those challenges, under certain circumstances.
Our focus is, and will remain, on ensuring that our team members are supported in delivering the highest level of patient care while maintaining the flexibility necessary to respond to evolving patient care needs.”
— Kerria Weaver works as the Government and You reporter for the Democrat and Chronicle, with a focus on how government actions affect communities and neighborhoods in Rochester and in Monroe County.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
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