Hospital Keeps Private, Medicaid Patients Separate, Paper Reports

A prestigious Manhattan hospital maintains separate maternity wards: one for mostly white private patients and another for mostly minority Medicaid patients, according to a published report.

Poorer mothers at Mt. Sinai Medical Center are shunted off to a dreary ward with chipped paint and black walls and shortchanged on such services as education on nutrition and infant care, the Daily News reported Monday.

The newspaper said it investigated the maternity wards after nurses called to complain about disparities between the fourth- and fifth-floor wards at the hospital.

Mt. Sinai said in a statement: “Mt. Sinai maintains two obstetrics floors on which there are some differences in amenities but absolutely no difference in the standard of care provided.”