Registered nurses at Chicago's Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital will walk off the job for 24 hours starting at 7 a.m. Central on September 3, part of a coordinated action at four Prime Healthcare facilities in three states, according to a notice filed by National Nurses United.
The union says the four strikes cover more than 2,200 nurses and health care workers and follow strike authorization votes it describes as nearly unanimous. Alongside the Chicago hospital, nurses at Saint Mary's Regional Medical Center in Reno and West Anaheim Medical Center will strike, as will nurses and other health care workers at Shasta Regional Medical Center in Redding, California. Start times differ at each site.
For patients in Chicago's West Town and Ukrainian Village neighborhoods, the practical question is narrow and answerable. Saint Mary of Nazareth is an acute care hospital with a busy emergency department, and a one-day strike does not close it. Such actions typically affect elective and scheduled work, not emergency care.
Ten Days of Notice and What It Buys a Hospital
Federal labor law requires unions at health care institutions to give at least 10 days of advance notice before striking. The union says that notice period exists so hospitals can make alternative plans for patient care, and it is the reason a one-day nurse strike rarely produces the scenes people imagine.
Hospitals generally respond by contracting with staffing agencies for replacement nurses, often on multi-day minimum contracts, and by rescheduling non-urgent procedures. Emergency departments stay open. Inpatients stay admitted. The disruption lands on people holding appointment cards for elective surgery, imaging, infusion, or outpatient procedures in the first days of September.
Anyone with scheduled care at any of the four hospitals during that window should call the number on their appointment reminder rather than assume. Hospitals typically contact affected patients directly, but the notice period is short, and confirmation costs one phone call.
Nurses at Saint Mary of Nazareth held a previous one-day strike in June, and the hospital said at the time that it had plans in place to keep operations running. In an earlier statement reported by Becker's Hospital Review, the hospital said it does not retaliate against employees for exercising their rights and that it applies longstanding policies protecting safety and patient care.
A First Contract in Chicago, Expired Contracts Out West
The four hospitals are striking over related but distinct disputes, and the distinction matters for how quickly each is likely to resolve.
The Chicago nurses voted to unionize in June and have no contract at all. They are negotiating a first agreement, which, across industries, typically takes far longer than renewing an existing one. The National Nurses Organizing Committee represents about 400 nurses in Illinois. The union alleges that since the election, management has prevented and threatened nurses on the negotiating team from discussing patient care and staffing matters with colleagues. Those are allegations, not findings, and no labor board has ruled on them.
The nurses in California and Nevada are in a different position. The union says they have been working without a contract since last year, which it argues has made recruitment and retention harder. The union represents more than 1,800 nurses and health care workers at Prime facilities in those two states, and most of those workers have already struck at least once during the current fight.
The union's stated demands across all four sites are consistent: incentives to keep experienced nurses and health care workers at the bedside, staffing that meets patients' needs, and the right to advocate for patients without fear of retaliation.
Prime Healthcare acquired Saint Mary of Nazareth from Ascension in a transaction completed in March 2025. Nurses began organizing the following spring, and WBEZ reported that several nurses were terminated during the campaign, which the union characterized as retaliation, a claim the hospital disputed.
Staffing Ratios Sit at the Center of Almost Every Nurse Dispute
The demand list reads like boilerplate until you look at the pattern behind it. MedicalDaily previously reported on an analysis of confirmed United States nurse strikes between 2017 and 2026, which found staffing ratios raised as a demand in the large majority of them, with wages appearing far less often.
That is the through line here. Vanessa Moreno, a telemetry unit nurse at Saint Mary of Nazareth, said in the union's announcement that "nurses have become overwhelmed with the number of patients we are assigned to," to the point that it is hard to assess and attend to everyone. She said the negotiating team has requested meetings with hospital attorneys regarding patient care concerns but has not had them scheduled.
Illinois does not mandate nurse-to-patient ratios by law, as California does. The Illinois Nurse Staffing by Patient Acuity Act requires hospitals to maintain staffing committees with direct-care nurse participation, but it sets no minimum staffing level. That gap is part of why ratio language ends up on the bargaining table in states without a statutory standard.
Readers who want to know how their own hospital staffs can ask directly. Illinois hospitals must make staffing plan information available, and patients or family members can request it from patient relations.
The Wider Labor Picture Heading Into Fall
The Prime action is not isolated. A running tally maintained by Nurse.org shows multiple nurse strikes in the United States this year, including hospice nurses in Minnesota who held a one-day unfair labor practices strike in July after nearly a year of stalled first-contract bargaining.
Whether a one-day strike moves negotiations is genuinely uncertain. Short unfair labor practice strikes are designed to exert pressure rather than cause attrition, and they impose real costs on hospitals through replacement staffing while limiting lost wages for nurses. They also sometimes precede longer actions if bargaining stalls.
What happens next is specific and datable. The strikes are scheduled to begin on September 3, with return-to-work pre-announced for the following morning at each site. Bargaining sessions from that point on will determine whether the Chicago nurses secure a first contract this year. MedicalDaily will monitor the outcome and any subsequent strike notices.
Key Questions Answered
When exactly is the strike? At Saint Mary of Nazareth in Chicago, from 7 a.m. Central on September 3 until 6:59 a.m. on September 4. Start times differ at the Reno, Redding, and Anaheim hospitals.
Will the emergency room close? No. A one-day strike does not close an emergency department. Hospitals use the required 10-day notice period to arrange replacement staffing and keep emergency and inpatient services running.
What should a patient with a scheduled procedure do? Call the hospital number on the appointment reminder to confirm. Elective and scheduled services are the most likely to be rescheduled, and hospitals normally contact affected patients directly.
Why are the Chicago nurses striking if they just unionized? They have no contract. The nurses voted to unionize in June and are bargaining a first agreement, which typically takes longer than renewing an existing contract.
What is the union asking for? Staffing that meets patients' needs, incentives to retain experienced bedside nurses and health care workers, and protection for nurses who raise patient care concerns.
Has anyone determined that the hospital broke the law? No. The union has alleged retaliation and interference. The hospital has said it does not retaliate. These remain allegations, and no labor board ruling has resolved them.
Does Illinois require minimum nurse-to-patient ratios? No. Illinois requires hospitals to maintain staffing committees that include direct-care nurses, but it does not set numeric ratios by law. California does.
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