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Mount Sinai nurses pushing for extra supplies on coronavirus front line

Nurses battling on the front line of the coronavirus crisis begged Friday for desperately needed supplies outside Mount Sinai Hospital on the Upper East Side, where they say their pleas have mostly fallen on deaf ears.

The dozen or so nurses held up signs saying, “We Will Not Be Your Body Bags” along with photos of assistant nursing manager Kious Kelly of Mount Sinai West and Jacobi Medical Center nurse Freda Ocran, both lost to COVID-19.

“Personal protective equipment and supplies are running low and being reused every day,” said Sasha Winslow, a union nurse working at the hospital.

By the time of the nurses’ gathering, some of their demands had already been met in a handshake agreement with hospital leadership — including enough protective equipment so they won’t need to reuse masks every day, and an increase in the length of quarantine for infected staff from the CDC requirement of seven days back up to 14 after it was initially cut.

“I am happy for it,” Winslow said. “But it’s a little too late. Don’t do it when we are sick, when we are dying.”

Winslow said she’s on a floor that “rules out” COVID-19 patients — meaning, “We take every mother and every child who do not know their results yet and we gown up.”

“The stuff we need is what we need that’s made in Italy,” she said. “The hazmat suit. What we have is a yellow gown and, if you’re lucky, a cap.”

“We just started getting [N-95 masks] over the weekend, when we needed them weeks and weeks ago,” Winslow added.

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Nurses and doctors protest outside Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan
Richard Harbus
Nurses and doctors protest outside Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan
Richard Harbus
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Nurses and doctors protest outside Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan
Richard Harbus
Richard Harbus
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Mount Sinai West nurse Diana Torres accused the hospital of shooting down front-line workers’ claims that they didn’t have enough supplies.

“It took one of my colleagues to lose his battle against this virus for them to acknowledge and stop saying we were lying,” Torres said, referring to Kelly. “If we did have it, maybe we wouldn’t have to lose one of our warriors.”

Mike Pappas, a family medicine physician who helped organize the rally and does not work at Mount Sinai, demanded that workers get “PPE and supplies now for every single health care worker — period.”

In a Friday statement, Mount Sinai spokesman Jason Kaplan said keeping staff and patients safe “is our absolute number one mission right now.”

“In addition to the resources provided by the city, state and federal government, we are continuing to move heaven and earth to ensure our health care staff have access to proper PPE,” Kaplan said.

“We understand the fear and concerns and we will continue to do everything possible to protect our heroes on the front lines. We will not stop until this crisis is over.”