Mandatory Overtime.. killing me softly
March 22, 2009
This has been a bit of a rough week. I worked 5 evening shifts and each one carried the threat of mandatory overtime.
For those of you that do not know.. mandatory overtime for nurses is the practice of hospitals and health care institutions to maintain adequate numbers of staff nurses through forced overtime with as little as one hour’s notice.
Because I work the evening shift, for me being mandated means that I am forced to work another 8 hrs through the night, for a total of 16 hours. I can not refuse. If I do I am threatened with serious repercussions from my employer which may include legal action.
It is my understanding that mandatory overtime first came about to provide adequate nursing care in the situation of an unforeseen emergency. This I can easily comprehend. The sad reality now is that it is more often than not used to fill known staffing needs that the employer has been unable to fill.
Leaving for work at 3:00 in the afternoon with the knowledge that there is a good chance that I will not be able to leave for home at the end of my evening shift is becoming increasingly difficult. I try not to dwell on it too much before I head out the door … but the thought is always there.. in the back of my mind… and I worry… and my stomach tightens.
The first thing I do when I get to work is check the staff assignment sheet. If it shows a nursing need for nights that has not been filled, my stomach tightens just that much more and my spirit takes a nose dive. For the rest of the shift I am on edge and stressed. Will they find someone to work? Will I have to stay?
I am an “old nurse” having been in the profession for over 30 years. And the reality is that I simply am getting old. My body aches in places it never used to ache and after putting in 8 hours… I often feel finished. When I hear the words, “you have been mandated”… well … it is difficult to articulate the feelings … powerless and defeated come to mind. Unsafe, to say the very least.
So what can I do? I am really not sure. I phoned our nurses union about this and they were of absolutely no help but did provide a supportive ear. “Fill out heavy work-load forms” was their advise. Ya right.. been there.. done that. How can this be, I have to wonder. How can they condone this?
My magic 80 (my eligibility for retirement) comes up next year. My original plan was to work for at least another four years but now I am very seriously considering retiring and working at something else if need be .. maybe the Humane Society :-) .
This saddens me in many ways… for I still love my profession but just don’t feel I am safe to practice in the way that I am being forced to. I am beginning to feel that the constant worry and stress is affecting the core of who I am, literally wounding my spirit.. and this is not good.
The nursing shortage is a true concern … but I have to wonder if the practice of mandatory overtime is helping the situation. Seems more like a quick bandaid fix than anything else.
I have heard that close to 50% of the now working RNs will be retiring in the next 5-10 years. One would think that the ‘powers that be’ would be wise to try to retain those thinking of retirement for as long as possible. I wonder when they will realize that mandatory overtime may not be the way to accomplish this. After we are all gone, I suppose.
March 22, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I don’t know how you can possibly do such a tough demanding job for 16 hours straight.
March 22, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Oh Colleen I so feel for you. Non-nursing people think the double pay is so wonderful. They don’t realize when we do a double evenings to nights we are up over 24hours. How anyone in management thinks we can give good care on so little sleep is beyond me. Something has to give soon. Do you realize our MNU contract is up this fall? This has to be put on the table. My heart goes out to you.
H
March 22, 2009 at 6:24 pm
And while some feel the day shift is busier, the late night shift is often the one where most emergencies with patients arise. Competent medical care will be waning over the next years with all the uncertainty … universal health care will tax the system and more will be expected from fewer trained nurses and doctors. At the same time no politician will tackle the problem of all the increased paper work required for medical professionals and the increasing stresses and problems of liability. When I first started it was rare that nurses had to have malpractice insurance… now it is almost mandatory across the board.
And now.. when so many studies are showing the relationship and importance of adequate sleep to a body’s balance, to weight loss and to overall health. I hope your hospital has all the staffing it needs so you can take care of yourself as well.
March 22, 2009 at 7:56 pm
How ironic for a place that is supposed to be all about health care.
March 23, 2009 at 4:57 am
Having spent the last five weeks at the hospital with my mother, I have run the gamut of nursing care and understand how precious a good nurse can be. The nurses here work three 12 hour shifts and then are done for the week. Perhaps your union should push for splitting the OT to a 12 hour shift instead of the full 16–while still tiring it’s not so unbearable.
While there is absolutely nothing I can do to make it better, please know I empathize and truly hope that you are able to work through this and regain some of the joy in your vocation.
March 23, 2009 at 7:26 am
Thanks Linda for your understanding and support but the sad part is, nurses working 12 hour shifts (we have both in our unit) are subject to mandatory overtime as are the nurses working 8 hours. There are no exemptions.
This is also an issue in the United States. The interesting thing is that 12 States, including New Jersey, New York and West Virginia have passed laws banning mandatory overtime. More laws in more States are pending. No such law is in Canada’s foreseeable future at this time.
March 23, 2009 at 10:35 am
This is simply not safe for the patients or the nurses! Colleen, perhaps you should consider retirement while you still love your job and before anything happens to your health or that of your patients.
March 23, 2009 at 10:49 am
That’s a poor corporate policy. The hospitals are shooting oneself in the foot and all their staff. Drawing up a schedule is not rocket science and yet a lot of restaurant managers seem to go by the seat of the pants, pitch-hitting instead of organizing.
I’ve seen similar short-sighted policies at play at Tim Hortons and Loeb where the longer you work there, the more you get yanked around by poor shifts and fewer shifts so instead of getting job security and consideration you just get tired until you quit.
In transport trucking the Ontario government had to step in and intervene because of the piecework-type pay of encouraging drivers to put in longer driving days and at higher speeds than a body can be reasonably expected to do as a matter of course.
Hope Canada gets similar laws to these U.S. states on mandatory overtime. Sometimes sense has to be imposed top-down.
March 24, 2009 at 7:20 am
I just wanted to say that you are NOT an old nurse.
March 24, 2009 at 8:25 am
Hmmmm, its just wrong. Here in Victoria we do not have mandatory overtime. I spoke to a shop steward about your policies yesturday…What if once told you had to work an extra shift, you said you would stay an extra 2 or 4 hours, but as you felt you would not be safe to yourself or your patients, they would have to find other replacement after that. Also would it be possible to fill out an unsafe incident report each time you are mandated?? The thing is that if people are continually forced to work extra…they then get run down and sick and end up not being able to do their own shifts….loose/loose situation. The need to hire and train more nurses!! They need to make it a priority!!
March 24, 2009 at 10:23 am
-staying one or two hours would be an option if they could then find a replacement.. but, as I have been told more than once.. they can not pull nurses out of a hat.
-yes.. we have been told by the union to fill out “heavy work load forms” each time we are mandated. I always do.. but many nurses don’t as they just don’t see the forms making any difference. Personally I do.. at least there is some sort of documentation, somewhere.
March 24, 2009 at 9:32 am
I could never have done a 16 hour shift even in my younger, stronger days. This seems to be brutal on the nurses and dangerous for the patients. Of course there is a nurse shortage and it seems to me that it will continue as long as young people know the situation they will be training to fill. I hope you can find a better situation before you completely burn out. You should not be forced to work under these conditions in a job you love and are obviously good at.
March 24, 2009 at 12:44 pm
I didn’t know about this! I hate to see Winnipeg lose a good nurse and I know you love your profession. But I urge you to retire next year. You’ve done your best for the patients for over 30+ years. The constant worry and stress is not good for you. And let’s face it…none of us know how long we’re going to live. I hope you’ll start enjoying retirement as soon as you can.
March 25, 2009 at 11:28 am
This is exactly the kind of situation a union is supposed to address… if a patient’s care is at stake, the hospital needs to have a better system in place and shouldn’t be allowed to fall back on lame excuses like “pulling them out of a hat.” Unless they are trying to drive away their best employees, that is. Hang in there…
March 25, 2009 at 4:29 pm
What a sorry state of affairs the forced mandatory overtime policy is.
It is unfair both to you and the patients. On an infrequent basis, such as a few times a year, it may not be too difficult, but to have the threat hanging over you all the time is bad.
Have you ever considered working in a doctor’s office as a nurse or physician’s assistant?
Here in Atlanta, our doctor has the most wonderful arrangement with his nurse. She is his assistant and whenever we call she answers the phone and gets right back to us with an answer from the doctor and instructions about coming in or medications. She makes his practice run smoothly for him and the patients.
And she gets to go home at 5 o’clock.
We lovingly refer to her as Doctor Joan. :)
March 25, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Any time I have had to spend in hospital, the nursing staff has been amazing. Professional, kind and attentive. I am sorry that work can be such a strain on you and I feel like there is nothing I can do either. It is a difficult place to be. I worry that we will lose more and more good nurses because of the sad state of affairs in our health care system. Please know that we patients appreciate you all more than you can imagine.
April 9, 2009 at 8:34 pm
I’m also a nurse and I totally understand what you’re going through. I’m also checking the hours each time I work evenings and worrying if we don’t have the staff for nights. I actually feel jealous when I find out the other nurses have medical “notes” to get out of doing mandatory and I don’t. We definitely need to address this issue at the next contract negotiations!! Reading the previous posts shocks me – there are places in the States where mandatory overtime is banned?!?! How come that is not being brought over here too?! What will it take for our union to make this a priority? Death of a patient due to an exhausted nurse who stressed to her employer that she really was too exhausted to work but they forced her anyways?
So yeah, for all the Manitoba nurses reading this, MAKE MANDATORY OVERTIME ONE OF THE ISSUES in the next contract negotiations!!!
August 26, 2009 at 10:52 pm
I live in ny where laws are to be enforced restiction mandatory ot….well I refused today and was fired after 12 years!!! sympathetic to all nurses but at times find the requirements brutal…killing me routinely with total disregard
January 3, 2010 at 4:21 pm
I work at a hospital in the operating room as a scrub tech. Several nights each week we are required to be on call. It is not uncommon to be there for over 20 hours at a time. Out of the 20 hours we are on our feet the entire time. There are times I have left the hospital and actually didn’t remember driving home. I don’t know the answer to this dilemma but I do know that we take the overtime because our wages are so low. It is the only way we make enough money. I just believe that having a union in place at the hospital would be the answer.