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A dispute between Mount Sinai health system and its nurses could leave expectant mothers with their own labor troubles.

The New York State Nurses Association is threatening a strike at Mount Sinai Monday, forcing women to go elsewhere to deliver, two sources told The Post.

Some Mount Sinai doctors are being told to take their patients to Lenox Hill Hospital or NYU Langone when they go into labor, the sources said.

“It’s unsafe,” said one angry OB/GYN provider at Mount Sinai West in Hell’s Kitchen. “It’s unsafe because there will be plenty of patients showing up [here] to labor and delivery. Then there will be no nurses to take care of them.”

Just as disturbing, the hospital on Friday began transferring premature and frail babies from its neonatal intensive care units to other hospitals. Seven infants were moved Friday with another six to be transferred over the weekend.

About 13,500 babies a year — an average of 296 a week — are born at Mount Sinai West and at the main hospital on the Upper East Side, according to state stats.

The massive Montefiore hospital system in the Bronx is also on the brink of a Monday strike, and has not made public any contingency plans — or said whether labor and delivery will be shut down. An average of 69 babies a week are delivered at its Einstein division, according to state data.

The city Office of Emergency Management will set up a situation room Monday morning to monitor hospital operations if a strike happens, Politico reported.

“If one of these major institutions, or perhaps both, are struck it would be a major catastrophe,” said Ken Raske, head of the Greater New York Hospital Association, a trade group.

The obstetrical provider noted that the situation was completely preventable.

“This is not a natural disaster. It’s not an act of God,” the provider said. “This is something that hospital administrators are paid the big bucks [to solve.] Their job is to staff the hospital.”

Some members of the Mount Sinai obstetrical team received an email from NYU Friday scheduling an online meeting Sunday “to review the structure of our units and policies/procedures.” The two hospitals were working together to give the doctors privileges at NYU, the email said.


  The obstetrical provider noted that the situation was completely preventable. Getty Images The obstetrical provider noted that the situation was completely preventable. Getty Images

A midwife said having women deliver elsewhere will be “extremely disruptive.”

“I think the hospital needs to give the nurses everything they’re asking for to end the disruption,” the midwife said.

The possible strike over staffing levels and salaries will impact the main Mount Sinai hospital as well as Mount Sinai West and Mount Sinai Morningside on West 114th Street. The Morningside hospital does not have a maternity ward.

Dr. David Reich, the Mount Sinai president, in a memo sent Friday, said the hospital had “no choice but to implement our strike plan.” That plan includes diverting ambulances elsewhere, postponing most elective surgeries and to “discharge as many patients as possible from all medical, surgical, pediatric, rehabilitation, and psychiatry units.” The memo did not mention labor and delivery.

Mount Sinai reps for the main hospital cancelled negotiations with the nurses union Friday while talks went on for the other facilities, NYSNA said.

“The bosses there have repeatedly broken their promises on staffing,” Nancy Hagans, the NYSNA president, said of the main hospital. “Our safe staffing standards are routinely violated and management gaslights the nurses when we try to enforce our current contract. There are still hundreds of nurse vacancies the administration needs to fill.”

Hagans said Saturday that talks had not resumed for the main hospital.

A Mount Sinai rep said it had offered the nurses a 19.1% compounded raise over three years, the same offer as at other city hospitals.

“Mount Sinai is dismayed by NYSNA’s reckless actions. The union is jeopardizing patients’ care, and it’s forcing valued Mount Sinai nurses to sacrifice their dedication to patient care and their own livelihoods,” a Mount Sinai spokeswoman said.

Montefiore senior VP Joe Solmonese said the union “refuses to come to an agreement despite a generous offer” that includes a 19.1% compounded wage increase.

NYSNA said it reached a tentative agreement Friday night with Flushing Hospital Medical Center and early Saturday with the BronxCare hospital system and The Brooklyn Hospital Center. The union had also reached a tentative contract agreement with Richmond University Medical Center while nurses at New York-Presbyterian and Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn ratified new contracts.

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