Central Maine Healthcare officials said Friday that 572 employees have left the health system since it was acquired by Prime Healthcare Foundation nearly five months ago, confirming insider reports of dozens of provider resignations that are fueling concerns over patient safety.

Less than 20% of the staff has departed since the Feb. 15 acquisition, according to a spokesperson for California-based nonprofit Prime Healthcare Foundation — a standard they say is common for hospital turnovers.

Officials also said Central Maine Healthcare has hired 400 employees in the same timeframe.

But current employees say the departures have increased their workload and presented unsafe staffing situations. The impacts are being felt at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, critical access hospitals in Bridgton and Rumford, and the health system’s outpatient practices, according to multiple current and former employees who asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

One physician who has worked at the health system for several years said she is leaving her job later this year. Eight of her colleagues have left in the last six months, she said, while the workload has compounded for remaining staff.

But it’s the patients she’s most concerned about.

“We have been incredibly busy and need more staffing,” the physician said. “I think that patient care is getting dangerously delayed.”

Management for Prime Healthcare said in a recent email to providers that CMMC’s histology lab, which processes biopsies and diagnoses cancer, is experiencing “critically low staffing numbers.”

Another email flagged several uncovered shifts through July and August in the hospitalist department, which provides inpatient coverage and admits emergency room and transfer patients, sometimes in grave conditions.

A Prime Healthcare spokesperson said some staff turnover is expected.

“Staff turnover can be common during hospital transitions and a consistent issue in healthcare overall, with averages nearly 20% nationwide,” the spokesperson said. “Our turnover is below that rate.”

In a letter to Maine officials requesting approval to acquire the health system, Prime made a number of commitments, including to invest $150 million in Central Maine Healthcare over the next five years. Another was to retain and support existing employees.

Providers say that isn’t happening.

“They made all sorts of promises about improvements that they’re going to make,” the physician said, “and things just continue to get worse, and people continue to quit.”

Prime’s numbers

An analysis of Central Maine Healthcare’s 2025 employment records, website archives and interviews with current and former employees revealed that dozens of providers have left the health system in the months since Prime acquired it.

According to employee interviews and records, at least six physicians have left or submitted their notice to leave the OBGYN department. Three permanent physicians are still on staff, but as effective dates approach, insiders say the department will soon mostly consist of midwives and locums, or temporary doctors.

Interviews also revealed that at least eight hospitalists have left, including four who Prime confirmed had “voluntarily resigned” since February. The health system’s surgical and cardiology practice has lost nearly a third of its physicians to resignations and relocations, the system’s spokesperson said, while the only two doctors at Naples Family Practice are moving out of state.

The health system said it plans to add an additional physician to the Naples practice.

After losing 572 employees and hiring an additional 400, Central Maine Healthcare employs 2,748 people. The health system did not immediately provide information about the nature of the roles that new employees entered.

The physician leaving Central Maine Healthcare said she has not noticed any new permanent providers.

She said that years ago, she decided to stay at the health system after residency because she “really liked it here.” There were issues with recruitment and staffing, but she said hospital leadership listened to her department’s concerns about seeing a safe number of patients and working a safe number of shifts.

Then Prime took ownership. She said things started to fall apart.

“We have been asked to work more shifts, see more patients,” she said. “Stuff gets missed, so orders are talked about that don’t get placed, patients aren’t able to be seen until later in the day.”

Some days, she said, half of the operating rooms don’t run because there aren’t enough technicians to staff them. Prime confirmed that “several surgical staff have voluntarily resigned since February,” but a spokesperson said that has not impacted surgical department operations or caused delays.

Last week, though, an email from management warned providers that laboratory staffing shortages over the next three weeks “may result in delayed processing times of surgical pathology,” which could set back diagnoses and treatment plans.

Management also sent an email to the hospitalist department in late June asking for volunteers to fill dozens of uncovered shifts. One volunteer provider recently started a morning shift to find eight emergency department patients still waiting to be admitted from overnight, which the volunteer said is only staffed by one doctor for seven hours.

Patients are often admitted to the hospitalist wing for serious conditions, including heart attack and heart failure, lung disease, sepsis and stroke.

If no one had taken the shift, those patients could have sat in the emergency room for more than 12 hours, the volunteer said, “potentially getting sicker.”

Asked how the health system plans to fill uncovered hospitalist shifts, a Prime Healthcare spokesperson said coverage is currently supplemented by locums and “additional shifts by the current hospitalists.”

“We are always prepared to address physician shifts based on what is best for our patients,” the spokesperson said. “Recruiting and retaining exceptional physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals remains an ongoing priority.”

Action and transactions

Prime Healthcare Foundation owns 21 hospitals in eight states. Its for-profit parent company, Prime Healthcare, has been associated with false billing practices, layoffs and, according to healthcare union United Healthcare Workers West, cutting frontline workers who called for safer staffing and working conditions at a hospital in California.

That said, this year seven Prime Healthcare and Prime Healthcare Foundation hospitals were named to Becker’s Hospital Review’s 100 “Great Community Hospitals” list, and another was ranked No. 1 in Illinois on health equity and social responsibility by the Lown Institute, a nonprofit healthcare think tank.

Prime told the Maine Department of Health and Human Services that, post-transaction, “existing CMH employees and management will continue to be employed by CMH with comparable wages and benefits.”

Prime “does not bring in outsiders to lead hospitals that become new members,” it wrote in a letter to state officials, but “typically retains the local hospital CEO” and invests in the success of local managers and physicians.

However, Central Maine Healthcare’s former president and CEO was replaced by a longtime Prime executive within 48 hours of the acquisition.

Since then, the health system has laid off approximately 50 IT workers — up from the 38 it reported in April — amid its transition to Epic, an electronic medical records platform. While the health system says no direct care roles have been cut, a former employee said Central Maine Healthcare eliminated two OBGYN positions in late 2025, effective in early March.

This isn’t the first time Central Maine Healthcare has been roiled by resignations, layoffs or leadership changes.

It isn’t the first time that a local hospital has been acquired by a larger health system, or one with a footprint outside of Maine. It isn’t the only time Mainers have had to delay care, either because of hospital closures, cuts to trauma services or the shortage of healthcare workers plaguing primary care offices, hospitals and direct care settings.

But as her colleagues leave and shifts stack up, the physician of several years said it is the first time she can’t see a future for herself at Central Maine Healthcare.

“The feel of the place has totally changed,” she said. “I think people are feeling hopeless.”

This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Hannah Kaufman can be reached at hkaufman@centralmaine.com.