Prime Healthcare nurses stage national uprising
Nurses from California to Maine strike and picket Prime facilities
Chuleenan Svetvilas and Lucy Diavolo
National Nurse magazine - July | Aug | Sept 2026 Issue
Nurses at Prime Healthcare facilities across the country are fired up and fed up with chronic short staffing, lack of supplies and working equipment at their hospitals, and being forced to do more with less at every turn. This is why they are unionizing, picketing, and striking from California to Maine, speaking up for their patients, their communities, and themselves. They are part of a national union movement to fight for safe staffing and optimal patient care throughout the entire Prime Healthcare system, which bills itself as the fourth-largest for-profit hospital chain in the country. (See sidebar for more context)
On June 17, registered nurses at Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago voted an overwhelming 96 percent in favor of joining National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC), an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU). Remarkably, just a week before their vote, nurses at the facility held a historic strike to protest the illegal firings of six coworkers who were unlawfully terminated for union organizing. Despite these retaliatory and unlawful tactics from Prime Healthcare, the hospital’s owner, nurses demonstrated their clear unity and solidarity that carried them to this massive win.
“Prime Healthcare thought they could scare us into silence,” said Chris Williams, RN at Chicago’s Saint Mary of Nazareth. “But now that we’re part of the country’s largest nurses union, our voice is louder than ever, and we’re still turning the volume up. We’re ready for a contract that makes sure our patients get the care they deserve, not the shortcuts Prime has been taking.”
On Sept. 3, Prime nurses at Saint Mary of Nazareth; West Anaheim Medical Center in Anaheim, Calif.; Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Reno, Nev.; and nurse and health care workers at Shasta Regional Medical Center in Redding, Calif. went on a one-day strike to protest management’s refusal to address their concerns about patient care and safe staffing. The nurses and health care workers are all in bargaining. Saint Mary of Nazareth RNs are negotiating for their first contract. The four strikes covering more than 2,200 nurses and health care workers followed nearly unanimous strike authorization votes. The nurses in California and Nevada are represented by California Nurses Association (CNA), an affiliate of NNU. The health care workers at Shasta Regional are represented by Caregivers and Healthcare Employees Union, which is part of CNA.
Nurses and health care workers at the California and Nevada hospitals have been working without a contract since last year, making recruitment and retention difficult and directly hurting patient care. They are demanding that management invest in nursing and health care staff and agree to a contract that provides incentive for nurses and health care workers to stay at the bedside, staffing that meets the patients’ needs, and RNs’ right to advocate for their patients without fear of retaliation.
“Nurses and the care we provide are the heart and soul, the foundation, of our hospitals,” said Michelle Gaffney, an intensive care unit RN at Shasta Regional Medical Center. “In order to do our jobs well, we need safe RN staffing and we need a strong contract to not just attract but keep experienced nurses. Prime is not investing in us nurses and health care workers and actually retaliating against some of us when we speak up, so we are joining forces across the system to let them know we mean business and are willing to strike together to win better working conditions and standards.”
The demands of the nurses and health care workers who were on strike on Sept. 3 echo the concerns of registered nurses at three Prime facilities who have been organizing to join NNOC: Olympia Fields Hospital in Olympia Fields, Ill.; Saint Francis Hospital in Evanston, Ill.; and Central Maine Medical Center (CMMC) in Lewiston, Maine. Nurses at these two hospitals filed their petition for a union election with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on Aug. 24. As of press time, the nurses are set to vote on Sept. 23 at Olympia Fields and Sept. 24 at Central Maine, while the Saint Francis election was put in abeyance.
After nurses filed for their union election, Prime wasted no time illegally retaliating. Management suspended six nurses at Olympia Fields and eventually fired two of those six, while one nurse was fired at Saint Francis. On Sept. 3, the day of the four strikes at other Prime facilities, Olympia Fields nurses announced that they would hold a one-day strike on Sept. 15 to protest the administration’s retaliation against nurses who speak up and fight for their patients. In solidarity with the Olympia Fields nurses, nurses and health care workers at three Prime facilities — Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center, West Anaheim Medical Center, and Shasta Regional Medical Center — announced that they would hold sympathy strikes on the same day. In addition, nurses at Saint Mary of Nazareth and CMMC held informational pickets on Sept. 15 in solidarity with the nurse colleagues at Olympia Fields. In total, more than 2,800 nurses and health care workers struck or picketed on Sept. 15.
“We’re so excited to join NNOC because we know we’ll be able to win the kind of contract that will be a gamechanger for our patients and for us as nurses,” said Anna Bilanicz, RN in the intensive care unit at Saint Mary of Nazareth.
Sub-prime Practices
Prime Healthcare, which is headquartered in Ontario, Calif. and had historically owned hospitals in Southern California, began in the 2010s to aggressively purchase facilities outside of California, venturing into Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, the East Coast, and even New England. Led by CEO Prem Reddy, a physician, Prime has a track record of acquiring hospitals and then cutting services after it promised to maintain them. For example, less than two months after it bought St. Mary’s Hospital in Kankakee, Ill. in March 2025, Prime shut down obstetrics, gynecology, childbirth, and delivery services and voluntarily gave up the facility’s Level II trauma designation. The county’s state’s attorney filed for an injunction to restore services and alleged that Prime was dishonest about keeping those services open for 18 to 24 months after the purchase.
Prime has also been the subject of numerous federal investigations and party to more than $100 million worth of settlements for health care fraud, including submitting false claims to Medicare.
Some of the facilities are owned by the for-profit Prime Healthcare corporation, while others are owned by a nonprofit Prime Healthcare Foundation. Critics believe that Reddy is using the nonprofit side to funnel business to firms owned by members of the Reddy family, with $104 million in 2024 alone going to management, service, and consulting fees according to its tax returns. For more information, visit www.crimehealthcare.org.