Forced Overtime Outlawed in Pennsylvania

As of July 2009, hospitals in Pennsylvania will no longer be permitted to require health care workers to work beyond the end of their shifts. Signed into law by Governor Ed Rendell, the measure is aimed at patient safety, the premise being that patients are endangered by overtired personnel who are more likely to make medical errors.

Additionally, the law protects workers who refuse to work overtime from discrimination or reprimands by their employers. Nor can the health facility use on-call time to fill staffing gaps.

I’m not a fan of forced overtime and some of my opposition could certainly be labeled as selfish. Frankly, there is life outside the hospital and I make plans for my free time. Those plans could be anything from attending a child’s school function to celebrating my mother’s birthday, from keeping an appointment with my doctor to shopping for groceries. A few of those things cannot be canceled on short notice without causing inconvenience or disappointment.

I recall a situation early in my nursing career that was not safe for my patients or for me. I’d had an ordinary day taking care of chores and errands before beginning my 3-11 shift in the ER. Late in the shift, perhaps around 10:30 p.m., a nursing supervisor showed up to ask me to work the 11-7 shift in ICU. Doing so would mean that at the end of the second shift I would’ve had no sleep for 24 hours, and I was expecting out-of-town visitors at 10 a.m. the next morning, which I explained to the supervisor.

All these years later, I cannot recall the exact conversation, but suffice it to say that she was persistent and, under pressure, I didn’t have the fortitude to say no. As an aside, were we trained back then to always be compliant and not buck the system or was I just that big a wimp? I do wonder.

The supervisor won the battle, such as it was, and I worked another eight hours in ICU. Beginning at around 2 a.m., I moved into a zombie phase, going through the motions, anything but alert—in ICU, of all places! At least I wasn’t the only nurse on duty.

The flip side to no forced overtime and tired nurses is inadequate staffing and nurses stretched to the limit. The obvious solution is that hospitals should hire more nurses—but nurses are in short supply. So, what’s a hospital to do? This is a conundrum and I wish I had all the answers but, alas, I don’t have even one.

Does your job include mandatory overtime? How do you feel about it and deal with it? How can it be eliminated?