The hospital reduced the premium shift differential bonus hourly pay from $40 to $15 for more than 60 nurses who are part of the program, according to interviews with nurses as well as staffing and contract documents and emails obtained by the Asheville Watchdog.
Ms. Lindell said the Weekender Program involves a limited number of people and does not include all nurses who work weekends.
“Employees who join the Weekender Program commit to working specific weekend shifts and, in return, receive their regular base pay plus an additional $15 per hour; and an additional amount for working the night shift if colleagues work weekend nights,” she said in a statement shared with Becker’s. “The agreements these select nurses signed was short term, either six or 12 months, and we have honored all of those existing commitments.”
She added that the current contract between management and National Nurses United, which represents more than 1,600 Mission Hospital nurses, does not include the Weekender Program and allows for the hospital to adjust this additional pay rate as needed. It does include “language specifying the number of weekend shifts a typical RN is required to work, which is now being implemented to help improve weekend staffing levels,” Ms. Lindell said.
According to a text message nurses shared with the Watchdog, some weekend nurses had until March 7 to agree to the pay adjustment or be moved to a regular RN role.
Union representative Molly Zenker, RN, contended that Mission Hospital is manipulating the NNU contract.
“We have a maximum of [52] weekend shifts that a nurse should be working,” Ms. Zenker told the Watchdog. “But that doesn’t mean we think that nurses should be having to sacrifice their weekends all the time. Now that they’re pulling back on offering incentives to nurses to work the weekends, they’re trying to find a way to justify forcing nurses into working shifts that they don’t have to.”
Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA has faced growing scrutiny from state officials, clinicians and community advocates over quality of care since the for-profit system purchased Mission Health in 2019. In 2024, CMS placed Mission Hospital under immediate jeopardy status in the wake of three previous patient deaths. The hospital submitted a plan of correction and is no longer under immediate jeopardy status.
Many of the nurses who joined the Weekender Program were hired in the wake of the immediate jeopardy citation, according to the Watchdog. Ms. Zenker told the publication at least five nurses have resigned since the pay adjustment for the program.
Most recently, clinicians, elected officials and community advocates called on HCA to increase staffing levels at Mission Hospital following a patient death that occurred in an emergency department bathroom in February.
Ms. Lindell has disputed claims about staffing levels, noting the addition of more than 240 team members in January and more than 36 recruitment events over the last two months. She also noted that Mission Hospital recently earned the top ranking in Business North Carolina’s annual list of North Carolina’s Best Hospitals.
