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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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State
Rep. Dan Surra |
    
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Nurses call for Senate action on mandatory overtime bill
HARRISBURG, June 25 – Nurses and other health-care workers and their supporters today called for Senate action on legislation that would prohibit hospitals and other health-care facilities in Pennsylvania from forcing nurses to work overtime.
The legislation (H.B. 834), introduced by state Rep. Dan Surra and passed by the House 166-31 in May 2007, has been bottled up in the Senate Labor and Industry Committee for more than a year.
"Prohibiting nurses from being forced to work up to 18 hours in a row, sometimes with no notice at all, is the right thing to do not just for nurses, but for patients in Pennsylvania and the state's health-care system," Surra said. "This is a patient safety and health-care quality issue with broad support; something many other states have already done. The Senate needs to act now."
Surra's bill would prohibit hospitals and other health-care facilities from forcing nurses and other direct patient care workers from working beyond their regular shifts except in emergencies. The bill would also prohibit hospitals from taking disciplinary action against nurses that refuse to work overtime.
Surra was joined by members of the Service Employees International Union at a Capitol news conference today to urge the chairman of the Senate committee holding the bill to bring it up for a committee vote, and to call on the Senate to quickly pass the bill and send it to the governor, who has promised to sign it into law.
"This bill would address several of the problems affecting our health-care system today, not the least of which is the nursing shortage that hospitals cite as the need for forced overtime in the first place," Surra said. "There is a wealth of qualified nurses to meet the needs of our hospitals; the problem is that an increasing number of them are unwilling to work 14 to 18 hour shifts and jeopardize the health and safety of their patients.
"The use of mandatory overtime as a routine staffing strategy is one of the major causes of nurses leaving the profession or deciding not to enter it. In other states where mandatory overtime has been banned, hospital administrators have found that there are better ways – and safer ways – to staff their facilities and care for patients."
Surra said mandatory overtime also wreaks havoc with the family lives of nurses since, in many hospitals, nurses are mandated for extra hours or extra shifts with little or no advance notice. The care of patients also suffers when nurses are fatigued or preoccupied with the care of their children or other matters. A ban on mandatory overtime in Pennsylvania could attract many registered nurses who are not working back to the profession, improve the quality of patient care and reduce the cost of medical mistakes in hospitals, he said.
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