Striking nurses and other employees of Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital are expected to be back on the picket line Tuesday.
More than 2,400 members of the United Nurses and Allied Professions, or UNAP, walked out Monday afternoon after federal mediated contract talks broke off, and hospital administrators brought in temporary replacement workers.
Chanting “Shame on Lifespan!” hundreds of unionized employees and supporters marched on the sidewalks outside the two hospitals in Providence. Some carried signs; others pushed strollers. And many voiced frustration about staffing and pay.
Operating-room nurse Lori DaSilva was among them.
“We’re totally short every single day of the week,’’ she said. “And it’s been like that for a couple of years. We can’t even get a pillow for our patients. IV poles. IV pumps. The stretchers are broken. It’s just deplorable.”
Linda McDonald, president of UNAP Local 5098, said members have been complaining about staffing levels for years.
“Our members fill out hundreds of what we call safe-staffing forms every year,’’ she said. “We bring up staffing, short supplies, working conditions all the time.”
Lifespan, the hospitals’ parent company, said in a statement that the talks broke down over wage increases, not staffing.
“Contrary to union leadership’s rhetoric, neither their recent proposal nor any of UNAP’s previous proposals included requests related to staffing or patient safety,” the statement reads.
Lifespan said the union rejected the company’s latest offer of average annual pay increases ranging from 2 ¼ percent to 6 ¼ percent.
Meanwile, state health officials said they’ve been working around-the-clock with hospital administrators to prepare for the strike. Rhode Island Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital will not accept stroke patients and are re-scheduling elective surgeries during the strike.
State health officials said ambulances transporting stroke patients will be directed to one of six other primary stroke centers in Rhode Island, while those with more complex stroke cases will be airlifted to Boston or Connecticut.
Rhode Island Hospital’s emergency department will continue to accept ambulances with trauma, cardiac and heart-attack patients – and Hasbro will keep treating pediatric emergencies — during the strike. The hospitals’ emergency departments also will continue to serve walk-in patients.
State health director, Dr. Nicole Alexander-Scott, said the plan is designed to keep patient volumes manageable.
“We’re doing everything we can to ensure that patients maintain the safety and the high level of quality care that they deserve,’’ she said after a news conference Monday.
State health department staff, she said, will be visiting the hospital periodically throughout the strike, speaking with doctors, nurses and other staff and “directly observing hospital operations.”
The hospitals’ operator, Lifespan, said it has hired more than 1,000 nurses and other replacement workers in anticipation of the strike. Lifespan officials said in a statement late Tuesday that the company had wired $10 million to a temporary staffing agency to secure the replacement workers.
Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo has urged the two sides to bring an end to their contract dispute. Nurses charge their wages have not kept pace with other hospitals, and the union said staffing levels are too low to keep up with patient demand. Lifespan disputes the claim that nurses’ wages are lower than other area hospitals, and said staffing levels have not been part of the union’s proposals.
Rhode Island’s Eight Primary Stroke Centers:
Kent Hospital
Landmark SW Medical Center
The Miriam Hospital
Newport Hospital
Roger Williams Medical Center
South County Hospital Healthcare System
Our Lady of Fatima Hospital
Rhode Island Hospital
note: Due to incomplete information from the state health department, earlier versions of this story did not provide a complete list of the stroke centers.
