It's been seven years in the making, but on Wednesday, Pennsylvania state legislation against mandatory overtime for nurses and healthcare workers passed its last hurdle on its way to the Governor's desk. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed a concurrence vote on House Bill 834, accepting amendments made in the Senate. Governor Rendell signed the bill into law yesterday, October 9th.
Nurses and other healthcare workers cheered from the gallery as the vote was announced. This victory is the culmination of a 7-year struggle by nurses and other healthcare workers who repeatedly marched, called, emailed and lobbied their legislators to support this important patient safety legislation. Beginning July 1st, 2009 - except in cases of true emergencies - mandatory overtime will be a thing of the past for any healthcare worker providing direct patient care.
"This is one big positive step forward for patients and nurses across Pennsylvania," said Kathy Magaro, RN. "We had champions in both the House and the Senate, but the real heroes are the nurses and other direct patient caregivers who met with legislators again and again to tell them the reality of mandatory overtime and why this ban is so important to them and their patients."
This is an incredible victory for Pennsylvania caregivers and their patients. When the law takes effect on July 1st, no nurse providing direct patient care will be forced to work overtime except in the case of a true emergency or unforeseen event. Nurses and other caregivers will no longer have to worry about making mistakes or falling asleep while driving home because we had to work over our regularly scheduled shift.
What an amazing moment for Pennsylvania and the future of health care.
RSS FEEDS
What happened to the "No more then 4 hrs overtime?"
This bill does nothing for Nurses who work in facilities like mine. We are being mandated to stay as it stands from "Call Offs."
The "4 hr" Cap and the "Lack of staffing" due to call offs were the two biggest issues. Our facility does not have a staff person to arrange scheduling for "Call offs" (they opt not to) so they depend on supervisors who mandate the "People Pool" at work. "Call offs" are considered an emergent situation for mandation according to this new bill, thus the "4hr cap" would have come into play.
Congrats on a bill we waited 7 yrs for what?
The biggest problem with mandatory overtime are those facilities that don't schedule or hire enough staff and then chronically mandate to fill holes in the schedule. This puts an end to that horrible practice.
Also when calloffs (plural - so more than one) occur suddenly and will effect patient care and could not be prudently planned for then an employer can mandate overtime after they have taken reasonable efforts to obtain a replacement. Since some amount of absenteeism is to be expected and prudently planned for facilities like yours need to be prepared to replace some number of staff each day.
the bill includes a definition of "reasonable efforts" which will prevent the kind of abuses you describe. Below is a quote from the bill.
"Reasonable efforts." Attempts by a health care facility to: (1) seek persons who volunteer to work extra time from all available qualified staff who are working at the time of the unforeseeable emergent circumstance; (2) contact all qualified employees who have made themselves available to work extra time; (3) seek the use of per diem staff; or (4) seek personnel from a contracted temporary agency when such staff is permitted by law or regulation."
It will no longer be okay to just force nurses or other health care workers to stay when calloffs occur without taking steps to find other replacement staff.
This bill is a great thing .I would like to know if it will affect the home where I work we are union my question is will the bill override the clause we have in our contract to be able to mandate ? Right now they mandate 4 hours overtime every call off and every staffing sortage they have . How will that work will the bill over ride the contract? thanks