Nurses sounding alarms on Mission Hospital patients being impacted by Medicaid cuts starting October 1 in North Carolina

Nurses say cuts in state funding will have serious impacts for Western North Carolina patients and communities

Registered nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, will hold a rally on Tuesday, September 30, to literally sound the alarm on the hospital's poor performance in staffing, health and safety, recruitment and retention, and meal and rest breaks. Nurses are concerned that these patient care issues continue as patients grapple with Medicaid cuts starting October 1, unless state legislators act. These cuts will impact more than 3 million North Carolina patients, many in the state's western region.

Nurses will gather with flashing alarms and sirens to literally sound the alarm on HCA's failure to recruit and retain enough nurses to keep patients safe. RNs are sounding the alarm because patients are already feeling the consequences of the hospital's poor recruitment and retention. Just on August 5, 2025, nurses filed paperwork because there were not enough nurses to safely proceed with a heart surgery.

Who: RNs at Mission Hospital
What: Rally sounding the alarm about Medicaid cuts
When: Tuesday, September 30, 2025, 8 a.m.
Where: Mission Hospital, 509 Biltmore Ave., Asheville, North Carolina; on the corner of Hospital Dr. and Biltmore Ave.

Nurses are also sounding alarms about state legislators' failures to budget sufficient funding for state Medicaid programs. If North Carolina legislators fail to act, these devastating cuts will affect all Medicaid enrollees, including low-income, disabled, and pregnant patients, seniors in nursing homes, and children. RNs are demanding that wealthy, for-profit hospital systems like HCA step up to pay their fair share to ensure all our patients can get the care they need.

Long-term staffing issues also persist at Mission. In March 2024, the hospital employed 1,692 bedside nurses, a number that falls short of the roughly 2,200 nurses needed to safely staff the hospital. By August 2025, the number of bedside nurses dropped to just 1,523. These staffing levels are alarmingly close to staffing levels that lead Mission Hospital into its previous "immediate jeopardy" designation.

RNs are also concerned that HCA is backtracking on implementation of nurses' demands to improve conditions at Mission. HCA has eliminated an important meal and rest break program for nurses, despite management previously touting increases in patient satisfaction on the hospital units with the program.

"The break relief pilot program was very popular with my coworkers," said Sharon Boyter, RN in oncology at Mission. "We were able to provide much better care to our patients, take a break, and leave work on time. Now we've lost it with no explanation from the hospital. We are not going to allow HCA to take away our meal and rest breaks, which are necessary to provide safe care."

Nurses at Mission Hospital are represented by National Nurses Organizing Committee-North Carolina (NNOC-NC), an affiliate of National Nurses United (NNU), the country's largest nurses union.

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.