Nurses Accuse HCA of Crushing Hospitals During Protest at Frist Family Gala in Nashville

Nashville, Tenn.-Nearly 100 union nurses from across the U.S. protested outside the April 27 Frist Family Gala at the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tenn., a black-tie event named for the family that founded and is a major shareholder in HCA, the largest for-profit health care company in the country. The protesting nurses work at HCA facilities, where they are in contract negotiations this year represented by National Nurses Organizing Committee/National Nurses United (NNOC/NNU), the largest union of nurses in the U.S. today.  “It was black-tie inside, but we were outside in red,” said Molly Zenker, RN at HCA-owned Mission Hospital in Asheville, N.C. “Nurses have protested this gala before to let the world know that the Frists fund galas and art museums& by pillaging and plundering the hospitals that HCA buys up.” NNOC/NNU nurses have protested the previous two Frist Family Galas in& 2022& and& 2023, making this the third protest of the event in three years. More than 10,000 nurses at 18 facilities in six states —& Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Kansas, Missouri, and Nevada — are represented by NNOC/NNU in union contract negotiations with HCA this year. In bargaining, nurses are fighting for safer staffing, against unit...