Largest union of Registered Nurses in North Carolina will announce support for Attorney General Josh Stein for Governor

Registered nurses at Mission Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, will hold a rally on June 5 to highlight their contract campaign priorities to improve patient care and working conditions, announced National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) today. Nurses will be joined by Attorney General Josh Stein who since 2018 has demanded that HCA meet its obligation to provide quality, affordable care to western North Carolina. Since HCA took over Mission Hospital, nurses say staffing and working conditions have deteriorated. The nurses’ current contract will expire on July 2.

“As nurses, we’re patient advocates, whether that’s at the bedside or at the bargaining table, where we are fighting for what we need to improve patient care and working conditions for everyone in the Mission community,” said Hannah Drummond, RN in the emergency department at Mission Hospital. “Rather than sit idly by while HCA is profiting off our community’s pain and suffering, Attorney General Josh Stein was not afraid to stand up for the people of Western North Carolina and our health care. I am proud to announce that NNOC has endorsed Josh Stein to be the next Governor of North Carolina.” 

Who: RNs at Mission Hospital Asheville
What: Rally for Improved Patient Care and Health Care Access
When: Wednesday, June 5, 8:00 a.m.
Where: Mission HCA, Asheville (at the corner of Biltmore and Hospital Drive)

“It is important to see elected officials and nurses coming together to hold corporations accountable, especially when those corporations are responsible for the health and wellbeing of so many citizens,” said Mark Klein, RN on the vascular access team at Mission Hospital. “We as Mission nurses have filed hundreds of assignment despite objections forms (ADOs) documenting unsafe staffing and unsafe working conditions affecting patient care. We have also filed complaints with OSHA, NC Department of Labor, and the Department of Health and Human Services. When we voiced our concerns, Attorney General Stein took us seriously. We support Josh Stein for Governor of North Carolina because he is a proven advocate for nurses and the people of Western North Carolina. We need checks and balances, not politicians who are chummy with a healthcare corporation with significant evidence of substandard care.”

“These nurses literally work day and night to care for the people of North Carolina,” said Attorney General and Democratic nominee for Governor Josh Stein. “They deserve our support. I’m proud to be endorsed by North Carolina’s nurses and look forward to working with them as Governor to keep North Carolina healthy and safe.” 

Since his time as a state senator, Attorney General Josh Stein has advocated for Medicaid expansion. As Attorney General, he successfully defended the Affordable Care Act in the U.S. Supreme Court, making Medicaid expansion possible, protecting four million North Carolinians with pre-existing conditions, and keeping prescription drug costs down for more than one million seniors across the state. He is also working to improve hospital price transparency and to strengthen scrutiny of big hospital chains trying to gobble up small rural hospitals, raising prices and reducing quality of care. In 2023, his office sued HCA Mission for its failure to offer adequate emergency and oncology services to the people of western North Carolina, including for their failure to uphold standard patient-to-nurse ratios. 

National Nurses Organizing Committee is the largest nurses’ union in North Carolina, representing more than 1,600 registered nurses at Mission Hospital and roughly 950 registered nurses at the Durham VA. National Nurses Organizing Committee is an affiliate of National Nurses United, the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with nearly 225,000 members nationwide.