A dozen private hospitals in New York City have received a stark warning from nurses who are threating to walk off the job amid contract beef. If negotiations continue to stall, hospitals could soon face the largest nursing strike in the city's history.

"We've been negotiating for a month now, and it's been very slow going," said Kim Grant. "We ultimately want to come to the table and negotiate with management and come to an agreement."

Grant, a seasoned nurse of 19 years at BronxCare Center Hospital, could join 20,000 care givers on strike. New York State Nurses Association said its contract with 12 private sector hospitals in the city expired on Dec. 31. It is giving hospital management until Jan. 12 to make a deal.

The union said its top priorities are protecting patient care with safe staffing, as well as guaranteeing health care benefits for front-line caregivers.

Dalia Branford, a registered nurse who works at Wyckoff Hospital, said good quality care is vital to serving communities.

“We need to have enough qualified nurses at the bedside in order to provide safe, effective care for our patients; and we need to be able to take care of ourselves as nurses, so we need to have great quality healthcare for ourselves, as well,” said Branford.

Also a top priority is increasing security measures in hospitals so nurses and patients feel safe. In November, police killed a gunman by Mount Sinai after he threatened to shoot up the hospital. The union says it's fighting for weapons screenings.

“There's a lot of incidents that happen," Grant sad. "Nurses fear for themselves and again patient safety.”

The union said the 10-day notice gives hospitals time to plan care for patients while nurses are on strike, but the focus is to make a deal in the coming days.

Nurses at the following 12 hospitals voted to authorize strikes:

Statement from One Brooklyn Health System: “We are actively engaged in negotiations and remain committed to securing an agreement that fairly recognizes the vital role our nurses play, while ensuring continued access to care for the Brooklyn communities we serve.”

Statement from Maimonides Health: “Our nurses are critical to our success at Maimonides. We remain hopeful that we can avoid a strike and negotiate a fair contract that rewards nurses for their important work and recognizes the increasingly difficult financial challenges that we and other hospitals face. Patients are our top priority, and we are preparing to hire contract nurses and re-deploy staff to ensure that we can continue to provide high-quality care to our patients.”

Statement from Mount Sinai:

"After only a day of working with a mediator at one of our hospitals, NYSNA is yet again threatening to force nurses to walk away from patients' bedsides – this time while continuing to insist on increasing average nurse pay by $100,000. NYSNA has acknowledged that federal funding cuts will cost New York hospitals $8 billion and 35,000 jobs, but just three years after its last strike the union is showing once again it is willing to use patients as bargaining chips this time while pushing billions of dollars in economic demands that would compromise the financial health of our entire system and threaten the financial stability of hospitals across New York City. We will continue to work in good faith to reach an agreement before the strike, however after months of preparation, our system is ready for every outcome so we can maintain high quality patient care and continue to serve our patients and communities across New York."