RNs and health care workers to strike on Sept. 3 for safe staffing at four hospitals in three states, nurses to protest suspensions of RNs in Illinois

Nurses at West Anaheim Medical Center in Anaheim, Calif.; Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Reno, N.V.; Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital in Chicago, Ill.; and nurses and health care workers at Shasta Regional Medical Center in Redding, Calif. will hold one-day strikes starting Thursday morning, Sept. 3, to protest the administration’s refusal to address deep concerns about patient care and safe staffing, announced California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), which is an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU). 

In addition to the strikes, nurses at Olympia Fields Hospital and Saint Francis Hospital in the Chicago area are protesting Prime management’s suspension of nurses for speaking up and fighting for their patients. Nurses at these facilities and another Prime hospital in Maine have filed petitions with the National Labor Relations Board to hold union elections.

The four strikes covering over 2,200 nurses and health care workers follows nearly unanimous strike authorization votes. The nurses and health care workers gave at least 10 days of advance notice to the hospital to allow for alternative plans to be made for patient care.

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. Employees 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
• RNs’ right to advocate for their patients without fear of retaliation

These demands echo the concerns of registered nurses at three other Prime facilities who are organizing to join NNOC. The RNs are part of a national union movement to fight for safe staffing and optimal patient care throughout the entire Prime Healthcare system. 

[Reporters please note the different times strikes begin]

Redding facility
Who: Registered nurses and health care workers at Shasta Regional Medical Center (Redding)
What: One-day strike for patient safety and a fair contract
When: Thursday, Sept. 3, 6 a.m. PT to Friday, Sept. 4, 5:59 a.m. PT
Where: Shasta Regional Medical Center, 1100 Butte St. Redding CA

Anaheim facility
Who: Registered nurses at West Anaheim Medical Center (Anaheim)
What: One-day strike for patient safety and a fair contract
When: Thursday, Sept. 3, 7 a.m. PT to Friday, Sept. 4, 6:59 a.m. PT
Where: West Anaheim Medical Center, 3033 W. Orange Ave., Anaheim CA 

Reno facility
Who: Registered nurses at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center (Reno)
What: One-day strike for patient safety and a fair contract
When: Thursday, Sept. 3, 6:45 a.m. PT to Friday, Sept. 4, 6:44 a.m. PT
Where: Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center, 235 W. 6th St. Reno NV

“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.”

Most of the nurses and health care workers have already struck previously in their fight for a fair contract. Nurses at Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Reno held a one-day strike in February and picket in June to protest the firing of two unlawfully terminated nurses. RNs at Shasta Regional in Redding held a one-day strike in Feb. Prime nurses across four states are standing up for patient care by striking and filing for union elections.

CNA/NNOC represent over 1,800 nurses and health care workers at Prime facilities in California and Nevada and about 400 nurses in Illinois.

Prime’s Profiteering

The conditions driving Prime nurses to take unprecedented collective action at their hospitals are part of a broader pattern of Prime negligence and cutting services despite its profits. In 2024, Prime Healthcare made an estimated $4.4 billion in revenue according to credit reports, and Prime’s nonprofit system, Prime Healthcare Foundation, reported another $1.4 billion in revenue in their audited report. 

• Prime has a history of acquiring hospitals and then cutting services after it promised to maintain them. 
  • After it acquired St. Mary’s Hospital in Kankakee, Ill., in 2025, Prime shut down the hospital’s obstetrics, gynecology, childbirth and delivery services and voluntarily gave up its Trauma Level II designation, resulting in an injunction filed by the Kankakee County State’s Attorney, claiming that Prime was dishonest about keeping services open. 
  • Prime cut services in 2025 at St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Ill. and at Mercy Medical Center in Aurora, Ill., soon after acquisition, leading to a letter to Prime CEO Prem Reddy from Senators Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin accusing the company of violating its commitments to maintain services to meet community needs. 
  • On Sept. 1, 2026, Prime announced that it would cut obstetric services at Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet, Mercy Medical Center in Aurora and Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago and consolidate them at Saint Mary of Nazareth in Chicago and Olympia Fields Hospital in Olympia Fields.
• In 2024, Prime Healthcare Foundation, which includes Saint Francis Hospital in Illinois and Central Maine Medical Center, claimed more than $78 million in debts they tried to collect from patients who qualify for charity care, according to their own policies. 
• Prime’s nonprofit hospitals made more than $104 million in payments to firms owned by Prime CEO Prem Reddy — Prime Healthcare Services Inc., the main for-profit company owning all the for-profit hospitals, Prime Healthcare Management, and Bio-Med Services, Inc., a medical equipment and consulting company. Prime only gave $3.5 million in uncompensated charity care, roughly 0.4 percent of the foundation’s expenses.

California Nurses Association/National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the nation with more than 100,000 members in more than 200 facilities throughout California and more than 225,000 RNs nationwide.