Ban on mandatory OT for nurses becomes Pa. law 7/1/09

Hello: Act 102 in Penssylvania does not apply to nursing agencies. How do I know? I was terminated from VNA Community Care Services which is affiliated with Lancaster General Hospital for supposedly "poor time mangement." I worked until 0430 am on a Saturday evening, then had to be ready for work the following morning at o8oo. I was given an extremely unreasonable patient assigment workload. It would have been impossible to get the work done in even 12 hours, much less 8 hours. When I was being terminated, I was told by my supervisor and the asst. director of nursing that they "were sorry about this. We both think you are an excellent nurse."" The VNA is a homecare agency and because they are not an institution, they are exempt from the law as the law is written in Pennsylvania. Please write, call or email Governor Ed Rendell and the representtives and senators in Pennsylvania and tell them we need to have the law amended and grandfathered to include nursing agencies and all employers on healthcare services so that patients and care providers can be protedted, regardless of the location where the care is given. PLease share this with other nurses. Isn't safety important everywhere?

Hello: I just wanted to add that my previous employer, VNA Community Care Services of Lancaster is in fact affiliated with Lancaster General Hospital. Benefits, payroll, human resources, continuing eduacation, email and a lot of other things tie right in with Lancaster General Hospital and its network. Even my employee performance review was linked to Lancaster General. (I had to go online through the email at LGH in order to sign my employee performance evaluation.) My big raise from them was .15 and hour, that's right, 15 cents per hour. And that was for a "good" evaluation. I've been a nurse for 30 years and that is the worst raise I've ever received. I guess Lancaster General's profit of 100 million dollars last year wasn't enough. (They are a non-profit hospital, by the way.) The year before LGH's profit was 137 million dollars. Is it any wonder that hospitals and other healthcare empoyers have trouble hiring and keeping nurses? Who needs to be abused like this? They are joined at the hip, operating under Lancaster General's umbrella. How convenient for VNA Community Care Services to claim exemption because they are an agency and not an institution. In fact, when I was being terminated, one of the human resources people came over from Lancaster General to inform me that the VNA was exempt because it's an agency, not an institution. That's why they call it a loophole. It's not fair to exclude nurses and other healthcare employees from the protection of the law and they should not be excluded because a homecare agency claims exemption because they are not an institution. That is why I am asking all of you nurses and other healthcare professionals to please write to Gov. Rendell and your local representaive and senator and tell then that this law needs to be amended and to grandfather homecare agencies into the law so that they are not excluded. It might be too late to help me, but hopefully we can get the law amended to protect nurses and homecare professionals who are still working for homecare agencies. Thank you.