Mount Sinai Cuts Hazard Pay For NYC Nurses, Report Says

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — The Mount Sinai hospital system is doing away with a policy to provide nurses hazard pay because social distancing measures have resulted in fewer patients being admitted to the hospital with the new coronavirus, according to reports.

Mount Sinai, which operates its flagship location on the Upper East Side, will stop paying nurses weekly $250 hazard bonuses on Saturday after making the payments for just four weeks as hospitals throughout the city were flooded with coronavirus patients, the New York Post first reported. The hospital cited a reduction of virus patients as a reason to end the policy.

Mount Sinai's Upper East Side hospital expanded its hospital capacity by sharing patients with a field hospital in Central Park and building patient pods in its lobby.

Nurses working for the hospital system told the New York Post that they feel "taken advantage of" in the wake of Mount Sinai's decision. Coronavirus patients are still being admitted to New York City hospitals and a vaccination for the virus is a long way from being developed. As a result, many nurses are still making the sacrifice of isolating themselves from their families to not risk spreading the deadly virus at home, nurses speaking anonymously told the Post.

More than 187,000 New Yorkers have tested positive for coronavirus and 15,422 people have died from the virus, according to the latest data from the city Health Department. An additional 5,054 deaths are listed as "probable" coronavirus deaths, but have not yet been confirmed, according to the data.

Read the full New York Post report here.