In the early days of 2023, while nurses were striking at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, 4-month-old baby Noah Morton died while in the hospital’s care. He was suffering from a complex heart condition in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), but his parents always questioned the sudden death.
They believed their baby had been stable and even progressing.
The NBC New York I-Team was first to report on questions surrounding baby Noah’s death while staff nurses were on the picket line.
Now, nearing the 2-year anniversary of the child’s passing, his parents are filing a lawsuit alleging strike-related staffing problems are partly to blame for the loss of their son.
According to a civil complaint filed by Saran James, Noah’s mother, “the failures of Mt. Sinai Hospital to properly plan, staff and care for their patients during the strike” led to the child’s demise.
Specifically, the complaint alleges the NICU nurses, who were on strike while baby Noah needed heightened care, were “inadequately replaced with unexperienced and unqualified nurses.”
Kardon Stolzman, one of the attorneys representing baby Noah’s family, said those replacement nurses were too slow to respond when the child showed signs he might be deteriorating.
“The records show a timeline over [Noah’s] last 48 hours of telltale signs that they did not pay attention,” Stolzman said.
Mount Sinai did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the lawsuit, but two years ago hospital reps told the I-Team the NICU was fully staffed during the strike, with 1-to-1 nurse-to-baby ratios, and replacement nurses who were all trained in neonatal intensive care.
The lawsuit regarding baby Noah’s death also cites an investigative report stemming from a complaint to the New York State Office of Professional Medical Conduct. That report, which was heavily redacted, references at least one hospital staff member who believed baby Noah did not get the proper standards of care. But the report concluded “allegations regarding untimely medical management of the patient could not be validated.”
The report did recommend a peer review of the incident.
Joe Ciacio, another attorney representing family of baby Noah, said the child’s parents deserve a more thorough explanation for their son’s death. He said one of the goals of the lawsuit is to fill in the blanks.
“The simple fact that you had people within the hospital wanting to come forward to talk about this is clear evidence about how bad this must have been,” Ciacio said. “The records show, I believe, in the days and day leading up to his death, a clear deterioration of him clinically that was not being responded to.
Shortly after Noah Morton died in 2023, managers and the nurses’ union at Mount Sinai came to an agreement to end the strike. The new labor agreement included promises of beefed up staffing. But later that same year, POLITICO was first to report an arbitrator had fined the hospital $127,000, ruling the Mount Sinai NICU had been repeatedly understaffed according to terms of the new bargaining agreement. That agreement had not been in place when baby Noah died.
Since then, the New York State Nurses Association has publicly announced arbitrators have ruled the Mount Sinai Health System has understaffed other departments and facilities with penalties amounting to at least $2 million.
In response, Mount Sinai has publicly argued its facilities are appropriately resourced and suggested any staffing challenges are a product of industry-wide shortages in the nursing labor pool.
