At State University of New York hospitals in Syracuse, Brooklyn and Stony Brook, small acts of heroism can be found every day as members of United University Professions, NYSUT's largest higher education local, put patients and teaching first in the face of potentially frightening budget cuts.

"We realize there are missions we have to serve: providing quality patient care and educating," said Josheila Crandall, membership officer for the UUP chapter at the SUNY Health Science Center in Brooklyn. Crandall is administrator for the department of medicine at Brooklyn HSC, which, like its counterparts in Syracuse and Stony Brook, includes a hospital and a medical school.

"When you’re asked to do even more with even less, it becomes very difficult," Crandall said. "And still we come in here every day not knowing how we'll do it — and we do."

Not to mention that Crandall and her UUP colleagues throughout the SUNY hospitals are active unionists who have been sending daily reminders to their legislators and to Gov. Paterson — through letters and lobbying in Albany — that cutting funds to the SUNY hospitals hurts New Yorkers.

"Although we’re nervous and worried, we’re taking action, too," said Kathy Southerton, UUP chapter president at Stony Brook Health Sciences Center.

NYSUT and UUP are calling upon lawmakers to reverse a proposed $25 million budget cut, and instead give the hospitals a $40 million increase in funding.

"During an economic crisis, when so many New Yorkers are losing their jobs and their health insurance, people will turn to these hospitals even more," said NYSUT Executive Vice President Alan Lubin. "The SUNY hospitals serve a broad mix of patients who come from all demographics in our state: rural low-income families; immigrant communities; the middle class and the working poor. All three hospitals are providing vital in-patient care, and outreach through community programs. It is unimaginable that the SUNY hospitals could be asked to do so much with even less funding."

The cuts are making themselves felt even before they've been implemented. Stony Brook HSC's School of Nursing recently announced that it is suspending admission to its Family Health Nurse Practitioner Program for the 2009-10 academic year "in light of the New York state budget crisis," according to a release posted on the nursing school's Web site.

Staffing in areas other than patient care is being reduced through attrition at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, where the patient occupancy rate is usually 88 to 94 percent, said UUP chapter president Carol Braund.

Attrition is a way of saving money that does not involve losing jobs, Braund said, but it's also not without consequences.

"If someone leaves, they're simply not filling the position," she said. "And that means if that was a specialized position — unless someone else in the department has some or all of that knowledge — that information is not going to be available for students to learn."

— Darryl McGrath