Registered nurses at Houlton Regional Hospital started a four-day strike on Tuesday, May 26, to protest what they said was “management’s refusal to address their deep concerns about emergency department staffing and its impact on patient care.”
As of press time, there were about 50 nurses on the picket line. The strike was announced by the Maine State Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.
The hospital maintains that “nurse-to-patient assignments are well within national benchmarks.”
It has a contingency plan in response to the strike.
This is the nurses’ second strike in seven months. In November 2025, nurses held a two-day strike.
Staffing
After the closure of labor and delivery services on May 2, 2025, the nurses said they reached an agreement with the hospital to increase RN staffing to three nurses at all times in the emergency department in anticipation of pregnant patients showing up with urgent cases there, according to a news release.
“However, new management took over at the end of May 2025 and is not honoring the agreement to ensure patient safety,” the release said. “Currently, only two nurses are scheduled from 11 p.m. to 9 a.m. daily.”
“We have patients, including patients in labor, who come to the [emergency department], who require at least two nurses to meet their needs,” Tenille Nason, an RN in the emergency department, said in the release.
Nason said the emergency department staffing agreement “was a compromise, but we felt it addressed our biggest concern, which was made even more critical by the closure of labor and delivery. Without an additional nurse, who will take care of the rest of the patients in the emergency department?”
The strike is scheduled to run to 6:44 a.m. on May 29. The ending time reflects what time the nurses’ shift starts that day.
Mediation
The hospital said in a written statement that the strike “comes after mutual agreement to utilize mediation to support contract resolution.”
“A year ago, Houlton Regional Hospital operations and financial outcomes were not sustainable,” the statement says. “Together, the entire hospital team has worked diligently to develop a turnaround strategy focusing on our community health care needs. We have responded by adding services, improving quality and moving the organization in the right direction to stabilize our financial outlook. This was not done without change, hard work and with many challenges and obstacles in the way.”
The hospital credited its nursing staff for its exemplary care and its leadership’s work to achieve safe staffing.
“Due to this diligence, the nurse-to-patient assignments are well within national benchmarks,” the hospital said. “It is unfortunate that the union continues to make allegations that the hospital staffing is unsafe, however, we are utilizing the same staffing model that has been in place for many years that resulted in good quality outcomes. In fact, Houlton outperforms the national average in just about every quality measure.”
The hospital offered a 21% pay increase over a three-year contract as well as benefit enhancements, the statement says.
Strike notice
Nurses gave the hospital notice of the strike on May 15, which they said allows the hospital to make alternative plans for patient care.
The nurses said they have been negotiating for over a year and a half for a new contract. The previous contract expired on Nov. 30, 2024.
“The emergency department is very much like staffing the fire department or ambulance services. You don’t know when the influx of patients is going to occur, but you need enough nurses to safely take care of them whenever it does,” said Nason.
Maine State Nurses Association, part of the National Nurses Organizing Committee, represents 55 nurses at Houlton Regional Hospital and 4,000 nurses and other caregivers across Maine.
The National Nurses Organizing Committee is an affiliate of National Nurses United, the largest labor union of registered nurses in the U.S. with more than 225,000 members nationwide.
Houlton Regional Hospital is a 25-bed acute care facility.
