National Nurses United identifies Community First at risk of service cuts, closure due to federal health care cuts

RNs concerned cuts will worsen ongoing staffing, equipment issues

On Saturday, Aug. 8, Community First Medical Center (Community First) nurses will hold a rally and community event in Chicago to highlight their concerns about the impact of federal funding cuts on the hospital, which is already struggling with chronic staffing and equipment shortages exacerbated by poor management. A report from National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest union of registered nurses, put Community First on “Red Alert” status, warning that it faces a dire threat of service cuts and closure because of its reliance on federal funding.

“It’s devastating to know Community First faces yet another challenge with the federal health care cuts – all so elected officials could line the pockets of billionaires and wealthy corporations,” said Emilia Wolczynski, RN at Community First. “At the same time, we fear that our hospital’s profit-driven owners will use the funding crisis to justify shortchanging their patients and worsening the staff recruitment and retention crisis.”

Community First RNs – who are members of National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC), an affiliate of NNU – point to management’s track record of skeletal staffing and other failures to invest in patient safety. The RNs are currently in contract negotiations, where managers have put forward health insurance cuts while nurses are left with chronic shortages of crucial supplies needed for patient care.

What:   Nurses ‘RED ALERT’ bus tour – Chicago stop

When:  Saturday, Aug. 8

Free Wellness Clinic available from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.
Rally and Speaker Program starts at 12 p.m.
Free music with DJ Cozmiika at 11 a.m. and High-Hat Second Line at 11:30 a.m.
Free tacos from Cultura y Comida starting at 11 a.m.

Where: Community First Medical Center, 5645 W. Addison St, Chicago, Ill. (Event on N. Major Ave.)
Speakers and guests include: NNU President, Jamie Brown, RN; Margaret Polakow, RN, Community First Medical Center; Chicago Alderwoman Ruth Cruz; Cook County Commissioner, Jessica Vasquez

Wolczynski continued, “Nurses are unified in our refusal of further staffing cuts or continued equipment and facility failures. Community First administration has a responsibility to ensure that the hospital remains fully staffed, its facilities properly maintained, and its staff respected.”

Community First is one of 602 hospitals identified by NNU in its “A Preventable Crisis” report as endangered due to the federal health cuts in H.R. 1, the Republican budget bill passed in 2025.

Community First’s financial vulnerabilities include:

• Medicare and Medicaid funding make up 58 percent of Community First’s net patient revenue.
• Community First has lost $18 million from 2020 through 2024, according to Medicare Cost Reports.
• NNU’s analysis shows that the federal cuts could lead to losses between $4,373,000 and $6,334,075.

Nurses have long called on the owners of Community First to address the well-documented staffing and infrastructure problems in the hospital. In addition, nurses say the hospital has a history of failing to adequately protect nurses. In 2021, OSHA fined the hospital for failing to adequately institute respiratory protections during the height of Covid-19, leading to the deaths of three nurses.

More information on the financial vulnerability of Community First and the patients who will be impacted by cuts or closure can be found in this fact sheet.

“RED ALERT” tour offers the union nurse vision for how to make America healthy:

The Aug. 8 Chicago action is part of National Nurses United’s RED ALERT bus tour, which is travelling to communities facing a drastic reduction in the quantity and quality of health care services as a result of H.R. 1.

H.R. 1 is the 2025 budget bill, pushed through by Republicans and President Trump, that cut more than $1 trillion in Medicaid and Medicare funding to give billionaires tax breaks, militarize immigration enforcement, and fund endless wars abroad. Nurses have condemned these cuts to health care funding and denounced its funnelling into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), which have unleashed a deadly, illegal, and cruel terror campaign across the country. At least four people have been shot and killed by federal agents this year, including the July murders of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine.

Union nurses are taking their alternative Vision for a Healthy Society directly to the patients and working-class communities they serve. To date, RED ALERT has visited communities in Glendale, Oceanside, Alameda, and Oroville in California; Minneapolis, Minn.; and Kalamazoo, Mich.

“The billionaire class and their Republican puppets are gutting public health protections to make themselves richer and militarize our neighborhoods, with zero regard for working people and families struggling to survive,” said NNU President Jamie Brown, RN. “Nurses refuse their deadly agenda. We’re taking the wheel and bringing our vision for a healthy society directly to patients and communities who will bear the brunt of Republican policies. We invite everyone who has felt abandoned by the political system to join us and build real working-class solidarity.”

Sen. Bernie Sanders has released comprehensive tax proposals to change the U.S. tax system and raise trillions in revenue, which NNU strongly endorses, to keep hospitals and health services accessible, eventually guarantee health care for all through Medicare for All, and build the pillars for a society that takes care of everyone’s needs, including affordable housing, education, and unionized living-wage jobs. He also recently introduced, alongside Rep. Ro Khanna (CA-17), the Make Billionaires Pay Their Fair Share Act, which would establish a 5 percent annual wealth tax on billionaires and invest the revenue in working families, including reversing the H.R. 1 Medicaid cuts and expanding Medicare to include vision, hearing, and dental.

National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.