NR 395 Week 7 Discussion Topic (Nursing, Huston, Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses) | GRADED A

Week 7 Discussion Topic NR 395 Have you ever been asked to work mandatory overtime? If so, what was your response? Did you work the requested hours, or did you refuse? If you refused, what were the consequences, if any? What is your opinion about the use of mandatory overtime? Explain the pros and cons of this practice and how you lean toward either allowing or disallowing it. In my facility, when there are shifts open that need to be covered, the unit usually puts up the days on a paper that allows you to sign up and pick up the extra shift. People usually pick up the extra time on my floor. I have experienced days where the day shift did not have enough nurses and they had made a night shift work till 11am (a full 16 hour shift) until they could get another nurse to come in and take her patients, while in the mean-time we had to work to discharge patients that would be appropriate to discharge in case they were not able to get another nurse to come in. This issue only happened once and I feel falls under the Mandatory overtime category. There have been times where they had asked me to come in for half a shift on my day off and usually, I have been busy and have declined the request to come in and they would continue to call other off duty nurses to come in. During these requests I have not experienced any consequences because they were looking for help. According to Huston, “Mandatory overtime may result from a number of unexpected events such as natural or human-caused disasters, sudden job vacancies, staff absences due to illness, or rapid changes in patient care requirements, or it may be a standard staffing practice” (Huston, 2017, pg. 136). In my opinion, mandatory overtime proves to be a deterrent and decrease the moral of the nursing staff, because it shows that the facility is not actively searching for coverage on their own terms or that there are already not enough nurses in the facility and they are not searching for new nurses to fill this absence, rather than cover up with already present staff. If overtime is required, there should be some beneficial incentives offered to the nurse who is willing to cover the deficiency. I picked up a shift once in a sister hospital with the offer of time and a half plus $500 incentive pay because it was for a night shift that had no staff available. The offer for extra money made working this night shift less debilitating because I was given more money for my hours to help this floor out with such short notice. The Academy of Medical-Surgical Nurses writes “Health care facilities should have a system in place to assess patient care needs and assign staff without the use of mandatory overtime. Mandatory overtime should not be used to provide adequate staffing as a solution to chronic understaffing” (AMSN, 2012). When there are consecutive days where there are inadequate staffing, the health care facility should have an alternative means of replacing the staffing issue like hiring agency nurses in the mean time while hiring new nurses and orienting them to the floor, so once the nurse is out of orientation, the new nurse takes over and the agency nurse is done with their contract. References: