Washington — Donna Benjamin, a pediatric nurse in Bayonne, N.J., could count on 16 hours to 24 hours of overtime each week extra work that she says rarely was her idea and did not help her patients.
"Let's face it, when you are taking care of patients, you are going to need sleep once in a while," Benjamin said Thursday.
She is among the thousands of nurses nationwide who say nursing shortages and hospital administrators are forcing them to work beyond their regular shifts. Her union has a contract that limits forced overtime, but many nurses lack such protections, Benjamin said.
The nurses are gaining support for their right to say "no" to mandatory overtime. Federal and state lawmakers increasingly are trying to limit nurses' hours, just as work restrictions cover air traffic controllers, truck drivers and other jobs where tired workers can endanger public safety.
"You don't have to a brain surgeon to know that forcing nurses to work 12 or 16 hours at a time is a prescription for bad health care," said Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who has led the mainly Democratic fight for the work limits in federal labor laws.
Like proposals in several states, the federal bill would bar mandatory overtime for health care workers beyond eight hours in a work day or 80 hours in any 14-day period, except in the case of a disaster or emergency declaration.
Hospital officials such as Dianne Anderson of Glens Falls, N.Y., say they do not force overtime and that curbs on staff hours would affect patients.
"It would severely strap a hospital's ability to function," said Anderson, who oversees the nurses and other staff at Glens Falls Hospital, which serves about five counties. "We have patients who have traveled for miles. What happens if we have beds closed or can't accept a patient into the emergency room?"
Union officials say the issue has spurred strikes in California, Maryland and Michigan.
"When you have to work overtime, it's not to take care of four patients in a less-acute ward," said Linda Bennett, a spokeswoman for the union representing 135,000 veterans' hospital nurses. "You're dealing with more patients, in wards where patients are more seriously ill."
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