texram

I"m a Lvn/Respiratory therapist in a small hospital in Texas.My question is by law how many straight hours does the law allow you to work before it becomes a medical risk to patients and to the therapist,,this includes hours in a day and week. I know there are laws pertaining to nurses and doctors,I was wondering if this applied to therapist also. Sometimes we have ventilator patients and are required to provide 24 hour coverage,,,there are only 2 therapist and we have to cover the 24 hours for however long the patient is there and some times that runs into weeks with out days off.Plus we also have to cover all patients during that time as well from er,ob,or, outpatients etc.Also when one or the other is sick or has family emergencies the other has to cover everthing no matter how long the other one is off. I may also add that we work 8 hour days,,,,every other w/e off and the other 16 hours are covered by call from either one of us.when we work the w/e we work both saturday and sunday and provide call both days.