After battling coronavirus all day, the overworked interns and residents at Mount Sinai’s West Side hospitals return home to a hospital-owned apartment building some doctors call the “Sinai slums.”

“It’s as notorious for housing cockroaches as residents, unfortunately,” said one doctor who lives in the West 59th Street building. He recalled he came home from work “and there was literally a cockroach on my pillow, which was beyond infuriating.”

On April 4, the water went out for half the day.

“There are people going to work with Covid patients, sometimes for 12 hours, coming home at 7 p.m. and they couldn’t shower for four hours,” the doctor said.

Doctors also complain of frequent elevator breakdowns, and days when the tap water is brown.

The 33-story tower, which has 465 apartments and opened in 1973, was long considered convenient and affordable. It is a half block from Mount Sinai West and a shuttle is available to take residents uptown to the Sinai Morningside campus.

Despite the conditions, Mount Sinai in 2018 jacked up the price of the apartments. Studios that used to be $1,400 or $1,500 jumped to $1,975, according to the Committee of Interns and Residents, which represents some 500 Mount Sinai doctors at the two campuses.

“These residents are risking their lives every day on the front lines of the biggest healthcare crisis in modern history, and the fact that many of them can’t even afford to pay rent to the very hospital they’re working for is mind-boggling. This is a serious problem that should have been solved a long time ago,” said Susan Naranjo, a union spokeswoman.

The salary for a first-year resident at the two campuses was increased by 2 percent last July to $65,000 a year, lower than at Mount Sinai’s main hospital on the Upper East Side, the union said. The national mean medical-school debt last year was $200,000.

One resident said the rent hike coupled with the small raise meant “We effectively got a salary decrease.”

The doctors have been working under an expired contract since Oct. 31, and the cost of the housing became a sticking point in negotiations.

Dr. Jacob Feldman said he was offered a $2,070 studio when he began his psychiatry residency in 2018 and had to look elsewhere for more affordable housing. The residents are expected to be at the hospital within 30 minutes if they are on call so need to live nearby.

“I was kind of left scrambling,” he said.

The rent hikes came after a 2017 appraisal which, the union said, wrongly compared the staff housing to fancier nearby buildings with amenities.

After a outcry, Mount Sinai backed down on some of the increases and provided a choice of renovated and less expensive unrenovated units.

Feldman said he was offered a still pricey studio for $1,970 last year after the hospital lessened some of the increases and declined to take it.

“We understand that it’s New York City and it’s Upper West Side, but it’s about what do they value,” said Feldman, a member of the union negotiating committee. “Obviously they value making money rather than providing some level of service or advantage to their residents that run the hospital.”

Mount Sinai said of the building conditions “we immediately respond to any complaints and have a multi-year service plan with a pest control vendor.”

“We have been negotiating a new contract in good faith for the past seven months to find an equitable and fair deal for both sides. We will continue to negotiate in good faith and hope to have a finalized contract in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, all Mount Sinai residents are receiving a performance bonus for their continuing heroic work during this pandemic,” the hospital said in a statement.