By Tessa Roy, WPRO News

After last minute efforts to avoid a strike on Monday morning, unionized nurses and other healthcare professionals walked out of their jobs at Rhode Island and Hasbro Children’s Hospitals later that afternoon.

The strike comes as ongoing contract talks between United Nurses and Allied Professionals (UNAP) and the hospitals’ parent company Lifespan hit a snag. The union, which said members have been working on terms of an expired contract since June 30, previously voted down a three-year contract offer from Lifespan.

Rhode Island Hospital said it was “disappointed” the nurses went through with the strike and that it offered “extremely competitive wage and benefits packages valued at tens of millions of dollars.”

“During the 8 a.m. meeting – requested by the federal mediator – the union rejected a restructured proposal from the hospital that included generous wage increases ranging from 9 to 25 percent over four years,” read a statement from the hospital. “Instead, UNAP leadership submitted wage increases of up to 28%, and added significant additional economic proposals that rendered their offer simply unrealistic.”

The nurses, however, maintain that Lifespan has not offered them enough. Nurse Karina Santos said she’s been with Rhode Island Hospital for 12 years, and her job keeps getting harder.

“I’m doing everybody else’s job with very little resources, poor equipment, and the people are getting sicker and sicker. I’m incapable of doing my job, at this point, safely and feeling good about myself when I get home,” she said.

Mental health worker Lauren Kelley said there’s not enough staff working in her unit, and that people aren’t being fairly paid.

“Past contracts have allowed us to not have a cost of living adjustment because Lifespan had been doing poorly, and now that we’re doing well, we’re not seeing any of that even though we, all of these people around you, are the ones who are making this hospital run the way it is and making those profits come around,” she said.

Temporary nurses have been hired to work at the hospitals during the strike, and the Department of Health said its staff is also on site monitoring. A spokesperson for the union said the picket line will be there all week until the strike’s end on Friday.