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Twin Cities Nurses' Strike Enters Final Day

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- For the seventh and final day, hundreds of nurses hit the picket line outside busy Twin Cities hospitals.

Striking nurses were joined by Lt. Governor Tina Smith, who carried signs outside United Hospital in St. Paul Saturday morning.

Forty-eight hundred nurses from Allina Health walked off the job last Sunday.

The biggest disagreement between the hospital and Minnesota Nurses Association is centered around who will pay for health care costs.

The MNA says it will file more than 20 complaints with various state and federal agencies alleging some of the replacement nurses are underqualified for their positions.

Hospital officials continue to maintain that everything in the hospitals is still running smoothly with the replacements.

"We continue to be impressed both by the replacement nurses who are skilled, confident, flexible and professional," said David Kanihan, Allina Health's vice president of communications, "as well as by other members of our care teams who are doing an outstanding job partnering with those nurses to provide excellent care."

"We are their nurses, we are their valued employees and they are getting better staffing ratios and still are not giving the best quality care that these Allina nurses give on a day-to-day basis," said Angela Becchetti of the Minnesota Nurses Association.

The strike officially ends Sunday at 7 a.m. There is still no word on when both sides will come back together to negotiate a new contract.

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