Discussions

I don’t follow the news but haven’t heard anything about the nurse that was mandated to work a double shift and then fell asleep driving home and crashed through a fence. Just curious as to who the liability falls on ? I know all departments are short handed and getting mandated to work but at what point does that become more of a hazard than not having adequate staff.

It really is a big question that probably doesn’t have a great answer. Would the nurse who was mandated and in the crash love to blame their employer, yes probably no one likes to be mandated. Sad answer is probably they are still at fault. Reason being is they chose to drive, they could have tried finding a different ride or if they were out of town stayed with a friend. It’s not a great situation to deal with but that is likely what MPI would say as well as a judge.

Everyone has the right to refuse if they feel unsafe . Unfortunately they decided to drive while being tired . They are lucky they didn’t kill anyone .

You do not have the right to refuse if you are mandated. It’s in the contract, if you are mandated you have to stay or risk being fired. That’s why they call it a mandate

They do have the choice ( maybe difficult depending on the situation) to not drive though.  
Ultimately it is the drivers responsibility to determine whether they and their vehicle are safe to be on the road.

Yes, you are right she shouldn't have driven but working a double shift shouldn't be either. I would think that the nurses are tired after a single shift, let alone a double shift. Being tired and working a double shift could cause a life by making mistakes. It really doesn't take too much to figure that out!!! Also there are lots of nurses out there from other countries, let them work and give them a chance. Especially when we need our nurses so badly......someone has to smarten up soon!!!

It’s definitely a risk and extremely hard and stressful on the employee but In some professions one just has to work at a job until it is done regardless of hours, especially if staffing is short. Many of us are completely unaware of the number of hours sometimes worked by others on a regular basis for our benefit.

Sadly, there are some ridiculous things that are out of our control like mandated double shifts. There are plenty of reasons to argue against these types of things. Really, the hospital must realize the risks to double shifts and realize that the responsibility would be on them if a mistake happened during work hours that could be attributed to employee burnout. This shift was out of her control, but the decision to drive was completely in her control. The accident she caused could have been prevented simply by her making other arrangements to get home.

Yes…. Yes you do have the right to refuse unsafe work… you cannot “mandate” unsafe work… you can put anything you want into a contract and it doesn’t mean it’s legal.

seriously! That's kind of relevant don't you think? Too tired to drive but not to tired to do a competent job while on duty?  
 
As well there is a nurses union, negotiate better.

PMH has to be somewhat responsible in my opinion. As someone else said what happens when a wrong medication is administered. It’s not just nurses either, all dept

If there is staffing shortages what else can an employer do except ask employees to work more hours. Especially in the health care field , patients cannot be left without care. Without enough nurses, doctors etc to fill positions the only other alternative is to close healthcare facilities and no one wants that.  
Throwing ever more money at wages doesn’t equate to more staff being suddenly available.  
The only way forward is to train and qualify more medical staff but if there are not enough wanting to enter this work in the first place how are you going to do that?

A lot of these manpower shortages come on the heals of cuts, restructuring and mandated wage freezes by our provincial government. Some say you can't just throw money at the problem but you can sure try and fix the issues that have been created. Remember this for the next provincial election.

Exactly. What's more unsafe? A tired nurse or no nurse at all? Both are bad outcomes, but IMO one is less bad than the other from a patient care perspective. To get an idea of what having *no* staff looks like on a shift, we only have to look at the disaster that unfolded at Maples Care Lodge early in the pandemic.  
 
It's double time or things get shut down. That's the reality right now, as stupid as that is. It only contributed to the attrition going on due to burn-out.  
 
I know from experiences that I have had that health care staffing is very much reactive vs proactive, no matter who is in charge. It's not something that has the capacity to be reactive! There's no good path out of this anytime in the foreseeable future.

There are some incentives for nurses but manitoba has some of the lowest wages and poor equipment management. Also as good as most of the nurses that come through ACC and BU there is no real standardized qualifications for teaching most of the classes other than being a nurse for 5-10 years. Which leads to frustration from students and faculty. There are a lot of reasons why nursing shortages happen, but a lot seems to stem from the government and from paper pushers who haven’t been on a ward and don’t understand the full extent of the work load placed on each person. It’s too bad the contracts put in for health care workers doesn’t give too many helpful options for when one is too tired to make it home: things like a taxi voucher to get them home or a place at the nursing residence for free.

I’ve been in the healthcare field for close to 15 years. In my opinion mandating shifts is part of the recruitment and retention problem. Who wants to go to their job and not know when they will be able to come home? I’ve been mandated to work 24 hours because no other nurse could make it in. At the time I had a six year old daughter. I know many of you say that’s not legal but, as a nurse, we are not allowed to leave our facility until another nurse is on site. To do so would mean losing our license. Mandating shifts needs to stop but this can only happen with an increase in the number of staff. Vicious cycle.