Long Work Hours

@bckyd7,

But don't nurses only like 4 or 3 days a week and have 3 or 4 day weekend, so you aren't missing out on anything fun.

@bckyd7,

Quote:

Do you believe the typical 12 hour registered nursing shift is too long or do you think it would be more beneficial to the worker and patient if shifts were 8 hours long?

12 hours is more than anyone should be required to work each day. No one should be expected to such long hours. Unless they freely choose to... because they're obsessed, or something ...? But then, that's their problem.

Nursing is hard, physically & emotionally challenging work... 8 hours a day is more than enough!

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@bckyd7,

I agree with MsOlga.. 12hrs a day? Even Restaurant owners get 3 hrs off in-between to be able to go again.

I know here, they start at 6am and get home after 10hrs, or midnight and home at 9am after finishing at 6, I don't know of any 12 hour shifts where is this?

What is also not good is spasmotic shifts. For 2 days it's 6am, day off and then wham, a phone call comes in "can you do the midnight shift please? " and off they go. How can any Nurse who is not into a regular pattern of either days or nights cope with patients?

Either is not good, 8hrs with breaks and morning or evening consistant should be the rule.

1 Reply

@FOUND SOUL,

Quote:

where is this?

Yes. I was wondering about that, too, FS.

1 Reply

@msolga,

worse msolga, I'm doing too many hours Smile

I meant start at 12 - finish at 8, or start at 6am and finish at 2pm..

You have to wonder even then, with these "on calls" how a person copes, drugs? To get them through for the change of times from morning shifts to nights so quickly?

I would hate to be a Nurse...

I know for a fact one person that smoked to get through I was discusted, she worked for a Nursing Home and they would call her out of the blue for extra shifts she would take them for money as the money is good and search for "drugs" to get her through which cost her 1/2 hr of time pay wise.

All I could think about was my Mother, one day, I reported her.

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@FOUND SOUL,

Would you want a family member's medicine to be administered by someone who had been working 11 and a half hours flat?

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@izzythepush,

Not to mention that it's an extremely physically demanding occupation, as nurses are expected to do things like help move patients from gurneys to beds and back again, etc.

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@jespah,

Makes you worry about going to Hospital now.......

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@FOUND SOUL,

When I had surgery a couple of years ago, the nurses were cheerful, professional and kind, and they didn't seem to be working 12 hour days. I really hope things haven't changed where I went.

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@jespah,

Interesting Jes...

I am still not sure if I want to go to Hospital Smile

UNITED STATES

Quote:

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) does not limit the number of hours per day or per week that employees aged 16 years and older can be required to work.

AUSTRALIA

Quote:

You can roster your retail employees to work up to a maximum of 9 ordinary hours of work on any day, and for one day per week a retail employee can be rostered for 11 hours. Part-time employees and most casual employees must work (or be paid for) a minimum of 3 hours per shift.

Dear me... This is from the Fair Labor and Fair Work websites... So, in effect US has no limitations and Australia stick to 9 max with 1 day only up to 11hrs.

Slave work .

I was just looking at a Nurses Forum, figgered you can't link it here:) But, I was reading where some are in-deed saying 12hrs and up to 120miles travelling and one girl said she was over-whelmed and was new, and they gave her 21 patients to visit and she was rostered on 16hrs a day.

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@FOUND SOUL,

Working 12 hours a day is not good for both the patients and the nurses. Patients dont want to be given medicine by a nurse who's half-awake!

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@amygarside,

Totally agree but how do you stop it when you look at what is "allowed".

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@Atom Blitzer,

Quote:

But don't nurses only like 4 or 3 days a week and have 3 or 4 day weekend, so you aren't missing out on anything fun.

There are nurses who do prefer the 12 hour shift. And that might help to attract more people to nursing.

But the nursing profession has to look at how sleep deprivation and fatigue might affect job performance if you work 12 hour shifts 4 days in a row.

Most nurses still have household chores, shopping, meal preparation, etc. when they get home. That leaves little time to relax, let alone get 8 hours of sleep, if you're working 12 hour days.

I've worked 12 hour days, often, but not the kind of continuous, hectic, physically demanding work that I imagine someone like an ER nurse would have to do.

Offhand, I'd say an 8 hour shift should be the limit. But, I guess it's something the nursing profession has to evaluate and decide for itself.

3 Replies

@firefly,

I have seen times when we worked 12 hour shifts for weeks at a time - 7 days a week. It was not productive at all, and the tax bite did not leave nearly as much take home pay as one might have expected.

ETA: This was mechanical/industrial work, not health care.

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@firefly,

firefly wrote:

Quote:
But don't nurses only like 4 or 3 days a week and have 3 or 4 day weekend, so you aren't missing out on anything fun.

There are nurses who do prefer the 12 hour shift. And that might help to attract more people to nursing.

But the nursing profession has to look at how sleep deprivation and fatigue might affect job performance if you work 12 hour shifts 4 days in a row.

Most nurses still have household chores, shopping, meal preparation, etc. when they get home. That leaves little time to relax, let alone get 8 hours of sleep, if you're working 12 hour days.

I've worked 12 hour days, often, but not the kind of continuous, hectic, physically demanding work that I imagine someone like an ER nurse would have to do.

Offhand, I'd say an 8 hour shift should be the limit. But, I guess it's something the nursing profession has to evaluate and decide for itself.

Most nurses I've known, and I've known hundreds, prefer 10 or 12 hour shifts, and many of them take the opportunity of the extra days off to work PRN somewhere else for on their off days.

The nurses that work 8 hours are usually in doctors offices, or are administrative or management.

It's too much if you're not used to it. If you are accustomed to that structure it's not an issue.

Where are the nurses of A2K? I'd love to hear from them!

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@firefly,

I've worked twelve or more hour days re deadlines. I've often been the only one in the building very late. Mostly all that worked out. I've worked that long when I wasn't paid and when I was.

But, as firefly says, not all the time.

When I first read about medical practice, probably in the fifties, I read about famous doctors. Major hours. Maybe major stories, what do I know, I was twelve.

I did have friends who did 24 hour shifts as routine in the early seventies. Yes they could nap if they could, but were wakeable for decision making.

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@ossobuco,

I admit that, for me, whining about doing more than eight, even being registered nurses, sort of startles me. For new m.d.s, your kidding.

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@ossobuco,

The times I worked twelve or more hours were both in a research lab and a landscape architecture office.

I don't really understand that that is too tiring, once in a while.

I do get it, if you have children to gather, and so on.

And I do get it, as not to be routine.

I'm not so sure your tasks - those talking about and re insistent eight hours - were more important than mine re mental cognizance.

I'm thinking we're raising petunias.

0 Replies

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