Maggie Simpkins starts her workweek at 6:30 a.m. Sundays at Oregon State Hospital, where the registered nurse dispenses medication to patients, goes over their treatment plans and maps out the day’s schedule, including appointments, meals and care.
Her shift is supposed to end at 5 p.m. But most Sundays, Simpkins has to work mandatory overtime, which can stretch until about 10 p.
m. For Simpkins and her colleagues, mandatory overtime has caused a wave of fear and concern about the exhaustion compromising safety for staff and more than 500 patients at the state-run psychiatric hospital in Salem. Oregon’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees , which represents about 300 registered nurses at the hospital, has filed 225 grievances on their behalf in the last four weeks, alleging the mandatory overtime violates their labor agreement and the state’s nurse staffing law.
“Toward the end of the shift, I’m more exhausted, and my worry is that the more tired I am, the risk of making an error increases,” Simpkins said. “It’s very scary when you deal with the mentally ill and making poor judgment calls or medication error errors. Fortunately, that has not yet happened, but part of that is because I have a great crew who look out for me.
” Registered nurses and licensed practical nurses worked more than 2,500 hours of mandatory overtime between June 3 and Aug. 4, hospital data show. Grievances are up as nurses have racked up mandatory overtime.
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