Registered nurses at Houlton Regional Hospital, a community hospital in northern Maine, will begin a four-day strike on May 26 over what union representatives say is the facility’s refusal to address emergency-department staffing concerns.
The nurses are represented by the Maine State Nurses Association, an affiliate of National Nurses United, which announced the action May 22. Union leadership said negotiations have repeatedly stalled on staffing ratios in the hospital’s emergency department, where nurses report frequent shifts running below safe levels.
Houlton Regional, the only hospital in southern Aroostook County, serves a largely rural population near the Canadian border. A four-day work stoppage at a single-hospital community is unusual: unlike strikes at multi-hospital systems where patients can be diverted, Houlton has limited transfer options.
The hospital has not publicly responded to the union’s announcement.
Maine has seen a series of labor actions at small community hospitals in the past 18 months, several tied to staffing-ratio language that has been ratified into law in California but remains contested elsewhere.
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