Friday, Aug. 14, 2026 | 1:24 p.m.
Culinary Workers Union Local 226 opened its fourth healthcare facility Thursday.
The facilities provide comprehensive services including free primary care, imaging, dentistry and mental healthcare — most with $0 copays. Culinary Union Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge said these facilities are a way to respond to the nation’s healthcare crisis, which is particularly potent in Las Vegas.
“Healthcare, it’s a big struggle for folks right now,” Union Secretary-Treasurer Ted Pappageorge said. “It’s a crisis, and this is our answer to the crisis.”
In 2025, Nevada was ranked 46th in state health performance by the Commonwealth Fund.
“Where do you go to get good healthcare in Las Vegas? You go to the airport,” Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom said, repeating an old joke about Southern Nevada’s reputation.
Pappageorge said these facilities are the start of a solution, providing help to 120,000 Las Vegas residents. Since opening the first Culinary facility on Nellis Boulevard in 2017, the centers have provided more than 570,000 primary care visits to Culinary families.
The facility is located off Tropicana, about 10 minutes west of the Strip. Members covered by the plan are required to work about 30 hours per week to qualify for these benefits.
“These were built so a single mom, a single parent, could walk in and miss a single day of work and take care of themselves and their children and have things done,” said Geoconda Hughes, associate vice president of health center operations at the Culinary Health Fund. “Get things done all in one day.”
The union’s healthcare facilities were inspired by the New York City Hotel Trades Council, which opened its first free medical care facilities in 1950, and they hope to inspire other reforms as well.
“We have to lead,” Pappageorge said. “What we think is that if we can raise the bar, then it raises the bar for everybody.”