ethics reply post 150 words must use citations
Overtime for nurses is a daily struggle we encounter in the facility I work in; short staffing and gaps within the schedule are filled in by nurses choosing to work extra hours with the incentive of what we call “bonus bucksâ€. Bonus bucks are an extra ten dollars an hour added to your hourly rate for the hours worked above your point status in 4,6,8, or 12 hours blocks. New York is a no mandate state which makes staffing difficult during a nurse shortage. “Frequent overtime and compressed work schedules that produce long workdays can be a major cause of stress and chronic fatigue reported by many workers, as well as the ensuing occupational burnout or serious health conditions†(Jorgensen & Golden, 2002). During the time I worked as staff there were many days, I would come in early to help fill in the night shift staffing gaps because of pure guilt from administration and that my co-workers were working short; same amount of work with less staff. “Minimum staffing ratios are absolutely essential to ensuring that staffing is adequate to promote patient safety and to achieving desired patient outcomes†(Holden, 2020).
My opinion on mandatory overtime is that if used excessively to fill in scheduling gaps and nurse shortage then you are putting both the patient and the nurse in jeopardy. “Nursing overtime both mandatory and voluntary is prevalent in the health care industry as a solution for managing staff shortages and high census episodes†(Holden, 2020). Negative impacts of mandatory overtime on the nurse is negative personal wellness, risk for workplace injury, poor patient outcomes, and burnout leading to turnover. A pro to mandatory overtime is control over any chronic understaffing issue and fluctuations in patient census; nurse patient ratio would remain consistent despite the time of day. A con to mandatory overtime may be nurse fatigue which leads to possible errors, mistakes and lapses in judgement increases. “Nurses argue that mandatory overtime in nursing is not comparable with that in other fields because the consequences of being overly fatigued for the nurse may literally have life and death consequences†(Holden, 2020). I lean towards not allowing mandatory overtime for the simple fact that nurses licenses are put in jeopardy when fatigue sets in and patients care is compromised due to this simple fact. “Mandatory overtime dilemma coms down to a conflict regarding how best to use limited resources (fiscal and human) to provide safe, quality healthcare†(Holden, 2020).
Huston, C. J. (2020). Professional issues in nursing: Challenges and opportunities (5th ed.) Philadelphia, PA: Wolters Kluwer.
Jorgensen, H., & Golden, L. (2002). Time After Time- Mandatory Overtime in the U.S. Economy. Economic Policy Institute, 120. Retrieved from http://www.epi.org