RNs from Portland and Bangor to hold press conference in Augusta, Maine, to demand safe staffing and improved working conditions

Registered nurses at Maine Medical Center (MMC) in Portland and Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center (EMMC) in Bangor will hold a joint press conference on Oct. 21 in Augusta, Maine, to highlight their patient safety concerns, including short-staffing, workplace violence prevention, and improved recruitment and retention, announced Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (MSNA/NNOC) today.

At MMC, nurses experience chronic short staffing, resulting in an increase in workplace violence and hundreds of missed meal and rest breaks over the past three years. When units are understaffed, workplace violence happens more often. Short-staffing leads to delays in patient care and canescalate stressful situations and create conditions for violence. MMC nurses have reported more than 250 incidents of workplace violence in which nurses were seriously injured and forced to take time off for treatment and recovery from these incidents.

“We need safe staffing at Maine Medical Center. The current nurse-to-patient ratios at Maine Med raise serious concerns about patient outcomes and staff well-being and safety,” said Kirsten Lane, RN in the emergency department at MMC. “Over the past three years, we have seen nurses leaving the bedside due to the working conditions. MMC’s retention rate for nurses is 25 percent, which is unacceptable. Workplace violence is also unacceptable. This needs to stop. MMC can and should do better. We call on MMC to take our proposals for safe RN-to-patient ratios and workplace violence prevention seriously and implement immediate changes to protect nurses and patients. We urgently need enforceable language to address the dangerous imbalance between nurses and patient loads.”

Who:    RNs from Maine Medical Center and Eastern Maine Medical Center

What:   Press conference for patient safety

When:  Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, 11 a.m.-12 p.m.

Where: Maine AFL-CIO, 21 Gabriel Dr., Augusta, Maine

“We work at the two largest hospitals in the state of Maine,” said Erin Oberson, RN at EMMC. “And while we work in separate facilities for different employers, we are part of the same union. In our union, MSNA, we believe patient care should be the No. 1 priority — that means safe staffing ratios, adequate supplies, and working conditions that allow us to give the best possible patient care.”

“Over the 10 years I’ve worked at Maine Medical Center, I have seen our patient population grow exponentially and come to the hospital much sicker,” said Lane, RN. “We are consistently asked to do more with less — less nursing staff, less support staff, less supplies, less equipment. When nurses are stretched thin, patient safety wanes. There are more patient falls, more medication errors, more bed sores, more missed assessments that lead to preventable negative outcomes, more call bells unanswered, and more basic needs not being met. The mental weight of not being able to provide adequate care causes moral distress, which in turn causes nurses to leave the bedside.”

MSNA/NNOC represents more than 2,500 nurses at Maine Medical Center and nearly 1,000 nurses at Eastern Maine Medical Center.

Maine State Nurses Association is part of National Nurses Organizing Committee, representing 4,000 nurses and other caregivers from Portland to Fort Kent. NNOC is an affiliate of National Nurses United, the largest and fastest-growing labor union of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide.