Sunrise Hospital workers call out corporate owner HCA: ‘Invest in us,’ put people over profits

By April Corbin Girnus

Nevada Current

Workers at Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center in Las Vegas say their units are dealing with severe understaffing, turnover and burnout while corporate owner HCA Healthcare rakes in billions in profits.

At an informational picket Monday, the workers called on the hospital to negotiate a fair first contract with them, something they have been waiting on for approximately a year and a half since they voted to unionize. With the workers was a 20-foot inflatable rocket emblazoned with the words “skyrocketing CEO compensation at HCA.”

HCA is one of the largest hospital corporations in the United States and reported $5.7 billion in profits last year, up around 10 percent from the previous year. HCA operates three hospitals in Southern Nevada: Sunrise Hospital, Mountain View Hospital, and Southern Hills Hospital & Medical Center.

According to SEC filings, HCA CEO Samuel Hagan made nearly $23.8 million in 2024.

At the same time, HCA employed approximately 313,000 people with a median wage of $60,820, meaning half of workers made more than that amount and half made less.

That equates to Hagan receiving $391 for every $1 earned by an average employee.

Or, as SEIU Local 1107 put it, “the CEO made more in a single day than most workers made in the entire year.” Union leaders argue the disparity is indicative of a larger crisis of corporatization and consolidation.

Genie Patrick, a medical social worker at the hospital, said the community supports health care professionals at Sunrise Hospital.

“We have Google reviews of the community stating, ‘I love the way you treated me. You helped me so much,’” she said. “We just want to be appreciated, like everybody else, because we’re doing the job. We’re working hard. We want HCA to appreciate us like everybody else does.”

Casey Donaldson, a physical therapist who’s worked at Sunrise’s inpatient rehab unit for eight years, echoed that sentiment and said it’s difficult to see good employees leave.

“We need to make sure that we’re retaining these incredibly experienced people,” he said.

Donaldson implored HCA to “invest in us. Invest in frontline professionals.”

Kalani Kauwe, a physical therapist at Sunrise’s trauma intensive care unit, said it’s not uncommon to be assigned 15 or more patients per shift. At other hospitals, workloads are closer to 10 patients per shift.

Both Donaldson and Kauwe emphasized their unit sees patients at their lowest — after car accidents, traumatic brain injuries, strokes.

“They went from being completely independent, now they need two people to help them move in the bed,” said Donaldson. “We need to go in there when they’re incredibly vulnerable and improve their independence within about 10 to 14 days, to get them home.”

Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom, who attended the event Monday, expressed his firsthand gratitude for physical therapists specifically.

“I wouldn’t be walking without a physical therapist,” he said.

Sunrise Hospital employs nearly 300 health care professionals. In addition to physical therapists and medical social workers, there are laboratory medical technologists, occupational therapists, pharmacists, and speech-language pathologists. They voted to unionize under SEIU 1107 early last year but no initial contract has been reached.

That professional workers bargaining group is separate from Sunrise Hospital nurses, who were already unionized under SEIU. SEIU represents about 20,000 health care and public service workers across Nevada.

Sunrise health care professionals held a similar rally in May to highlight the stalled negotiations and need for better working conditions.

In addition to their picket, the workers launched a website to encourage supporters to put pressure on the hospital and its corporate owners: RespectSunriseProfessionals.org. According to SEIU, hundreds of emails have already been sent.

HCA Healthcare and Sunrise Hospital did not directly respond to the claims made about working conditions, but provided a statement to the Nevada Current: “At Sunrise Hospital, we believe a strong culture of respect and collaboration among our colleagues is critical to our mission. We value each member of our team and are committed to fair and equitable compensation for all.”

The statement noted that bargaining meetings are scheduled for this week.

“We look forward to continuing to engage in open, productive discussions with the union to foster an environment where our employees can provide the excellent service they are known for,” concluded the statement.

HCA made headlines last month after Attorney General Aaron Ford announced the State of Nevada would receive $768,500 as part of a $2.9 million multistate settlement with the health care giant for requiring nurses to repay the cost of a mandatory training program if they left the company before two years.

Ford, attorneys general from California and Colorado and the Biden administration argued it was an unlawful form of employer-driven debt and a violation of state consumer protection laws.

In addition to penalty fees paid to the state, HCA agreed to pay $75,776 in restitution to Nevada nurses impacted by the repayment policy.

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April Corbin Girnus is an award-winning journalist and deputy editor of Nevada Current. A stickler about municipal boundary lines, April enjoys teaching people about unincorporated Clark County. She grew up in Sunrise Manor and currently resides in Paradise with her husband, three children and one mutt.