Nurses represented by National Nurses United held a rally March 6 outside the hospital to highlight what they describe as a patient safety crisis. Nurses said the ED was short at least six nurses at the start of their shift Feb. 10, when a patient experiencing chest pain died in the bathroom. Medical staffers who were working that day previously told the Asheville Watchdog that an electrocardiogram test was ordered for the male patient, who had asked to use the bathroom before the test was performed. The patient had pulled a cord for assistance in the bathroom and was found about 15 minutes later by a triage nurse, at which point his heart had stopped beating.
One staff member was terminated after an internal investigation.
“Patient safety is being compromised,” Gabby Taylor, RN, who works in the hospital’s cardiovascular ICU, said in a union news release. “Hospital administrators have refused to take meaningful action to fix the staffing crisis, leaving nurses overburdened and putting patients at risk.”
On Feb. 28, Reclaim Healthcare — a coalition of physicians, nurses, elected officials and other local advocates — held a press conference urging Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA to boost staffing levels, saying the patient death could have been prevented, the Asheville Citizen Times reported. Advocates also pressed the hospital to share more information surrounding another patient death that occurred in January. Formed in 2024, the group has been pressing HCA to either improve staffing and care services, or relinquish its ownership of Mission Hospital.
Mission Health spokesperson Nancy Lindell said claims about staffing levels at the hospital are incorrect, noting increases made over the past several months.
“Our commitment to providing safe, exceptional care remains steadfast, especially since we have historically high numbers of patients with respiratory and flu-like illnesses,” she said in a statement to Becker’s. “To help us during this surge in ER volume, we have provided additional resources and support, including a significant number of contract nurses from outside the area. We continue to prioritize our hiring and recruitment efforts — adding more than 240 members to our team in January and holding more than 36 recruitment events over the last two months.”
“We are proud of our clinical outcomes, and the daily feedback we receive from our patients confirms the excellent care they receive, even in these busy periods,” she said.
Ms. Lindell also stated that the February patient death was the result of “hospital protocols not being followed by certain staff members and not the result of staffing levels.” An investigation into the January incident “confirmed that there were no delays that impacted the outcome,” she said.
HCA acquired Mission Health in 2019. HCA has since faced growing criticism from state officials, clinicians and community advocates who claim quality of care has declined since the for-profit system purchased Mission Health. In February 2024, CMS issued Mission Hospital an immediate jeopardy citation surrounding three patient deaths that occurred in 2022 and 2023. The citation was lifted after the hospital submitted a plan of correction.
HCA also faces ongoing legal challenges over its ownership of Mission Health. In 2023, North Carolina’s then-Attorney General Josh Stein sued the health system, alleging it failed to uphold its contractual obligations to maintain certain services at Mission Hospital. Additionally, Buncombe County has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that staffing cuts have led to longer ED wait times, forcing EMS workers to care for patients in ambulances and hallways until hospital staff can take over.