Gov. Janet Mills asked the owner of Central Maine Medical Center “to immediately reinstate every nurse who has been wrongfully fired or suspended.”
In a letter sent Thursday to Allen Stefanek, president and CEO of Ontario, Calif.-based nonprofit Prime Healthcare Foundation Inc., Mills wrote that 15 nurses were terminated and five others were suspended “just days before a union election.”
The election is scheduled for today, Sept. 24.
Central Maine Medical Center contends that the terminations and suspensions were not wrongful, a spokesperson said in a statement emailed by Prime Healthcare to Mainebiz.
“No employee has been suspended or terminated because of union activity or for exercising protected rights,” the statement said.
‘Heightened concern’
Prime Healthcare’s actions heighten concerns that it is failing to meet its commitments toward the Lewiston hospital, Mills wrote.
Central Maine Medical Center is part of Central Maine Healthcare. The state approved Prime’s acquisition of Central Maine Healthcare in 2025. The approval required that essential health services for patients be maintained in accordance with acceptable standards for quality and safety. The acquisition closed earlier this year.
The Maine Department of Health and Human Services, acting in its capacity as the state agent for Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is reviewing quality of care and safety concerns related to staffing under that authority, Mills said.
‘Targeting nurses’
In August, registered nurses at Central Maine Medical Center filed paperwork to unionize amid demands for better nurse-to-patient ratios and adequate support staff. The nurses aim to join the Maine State Nurses Association and National Nurses United.
In a statement last week, the Maine State Nurses Association said Prime “is illegally and sweepingly targeting nurses at CMMC for advocating for their patients, patient care and improvements at their hospital. This is part of a larger pattern of Prime targeting nurses for patient advocacy at hospitals across the country.”
The association, representing 4,000 nurses and other caregivers in Maine, said it would be filing federal charges against Prime for the actions.
The association is part of the National Nurses Organizing Committee, an affiliate for National Nurses United.
In a separate statement this week, the Maine AFL-CIO said it is demanding that Prime reinstate nurses it suspended or fired.
“These dedicated nurses are organizing for a stronger voice in their workplace to effectively push for improvements in working conditions and patient care,” said Cynthia Phinney, Maine AFL-CIO’s president. “We demand that Prime immediately cease its union busting and reinstate nurses it suspended or fired for exercising their federal right to form a union and speak up for their patients.”
Prime Healthcare response
In its response, citing a Central Maine Medical Center spokesperson, Prime Healthcare wrote, “We respect the rights of every nurse to engage in legally protected activity and to make their own individual decision about union representation, including the right to vote against unionization and remain in a direct relationship with the hospital.”
Employment actions “are based on documented violations of established hospital policies and standards, such as patient abandonment; timekeeping violations; disruption of patient care; and other conduct that interferes with patient care and patient safety,” the statement said.
National Nurses United and its affiliates “are focusing attention on problems that in nearly all cases existed long before Prime arrived and that we are working as quickly and responsibly as possible to correct,” the statement said.
Repeated strikes have been called at multiple Prime hospitals, “with Prime implementing new wage and benefit increases in the millions of dollars to the nurses,” the statement said.
Informational picket
Registered nurses at Central Maine Medical Center held an informational picket on Sept. 15 in solidarity with nurse colleagues within the Prime system who were on strike at Olympia Fields hospital in Olympia Fields, Ill., to protest the suspension of six nurses there, the Maine State Nurses Association said.
“We are united with nurses at other Prime Healthcare hospitals,” said Cynthia Gahagan, RN in the operating room at Central Maine Medical Center.
The CMMC nurses were joined in solidarity by several unions including IAM Local S6, Ironworkers 852. Maine Service Employees Association and others.
Acquisition terms
Prime’s acquisition of Central Maine Healthcare included Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Bridgton and Rumford hospitals, Rumford Community Home, Bolster Heights Residential Care in Auburn, the Maine College of Health Professions in Lewiston, Central Maine Healthcare’s Cancer Care Center in Lewiston and more than 40 physician practices.
Terms of the deal included a requirement that Prime continue to operate Central Maine Medical Center as a general acute care hospital for at least five years. Prime was prohibited from making any material reductions to or changes in the mix or level of essential services offered at Central Maine Healthcare for at least five years.
Prime Healthcare Foundation has said it would invest $150 million over the next five years to strengthen Central Maine Healthcare’s facilities, services and infrastructure. It pledged to “retain substantially” all of Central Maine Healthcare’s employees.
With 250 licensed acute-care beds, Central Maine Medical Center is ranked Maine’s third-largest hospital in the 2026 Mainebiz Book of Lists.
