ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Nurses at Mission Hospital rallied outside the facility Tuesday morning, saying persistent staffing shortages are jeopardizing patient safety as North Carolina prepares for Medicaid funding cuts set to take effect Oct. 1.

About two dozen nurses gathered near the hospital entrance, holding signs and chanting as passing drivers honked in support. The demonstration was organized by the National Nurses Organizing Committee-North Carolina, part of National Nurses United, the country’s largest nurses union.

“We’re still losing nurses faster than they’re being replaced,” said Tammy Plemmons, a staff pool RN who has worked at the hospital for 34 years. “They’re not hiring nurses fast enough. They promised to hire 100 nurses in 100 days, but the hires have only kept pace with the nurses leaving.”

Nurses described overwhelming patient loads, unsafe nurse-to-patient ratios and a lack of incentives to keep experienced staff. Plemmons said veteran nurses receive no retention bonuses, even as the hospital offers sign-on pay to new hires.

“Our ratios aren’t improving,” said Molly Zenker, a staff pool RN for eight years.

She said staffing on the medical-surgical unit should be one nurse to five patients, but one nurse had seven assigned to her.

“That’s incredibly unsafe for both patients and nurses,” Zenker said. “And it’s not getting any better.”

Several nurses said recent patient deaths, falls and medication errors have been linked to staffing shortages and Mission’s reliance on remote telemetry monitoring. They argued that moving monitoring staff back to the bedside would prevent delays in responding to emergencies.

“Instead of fixing root causes, administration blames bedside nurses,” Plemmons said. “Every single day we’re objecting to unsafe assignments, and nothing changes. It just falls on deaf ears.”

Union leaders also tied Tuesday’s rally to looming Medicaid cuts, saying reduced funding will further strain care for more than 3 million North Carolinians.

“Nurses just want to come to work and provide safe care,” Zenker said. “HCA has the resources to do it. They just refuse.”

According to union data, Mission employed 1,692 bedside nurses in March 2024. By August 2025, that number had dropped to 1,523, well below the roughly 2,200 nurses the union says are needed to safely staff the hospital.

Mission Health spokesperson Nancy Lindell said in a statement the rally was based on misinformation.

“Both parties agreed to trialing a pilot meal break program, and after twice extending that pilot, the same or better results were seen from non-pilot units. We remain committed to giving our staff the resources they need, like leader tools, to support uninterrupted nurse breaks,” she said.

“The number of RNs they have reported is also misleading. We have trained traveler nurses that fill open positions to continue to provide care for our patients while we recruit. Mission Hospital is proud of the team we’re building and will continue to attract and support our clinical staff as they deliver exceptional care.”