am i being over worked

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.

That hospital needs to make sure it has good malpractice insurance. If they can't provide the coverage they need then they need to send those patients to a bigger hospital. You might check into malpractice insurance yourself because working like that something is bound to happen and you don't want to be in financial ruin because of it. Hope this helps. Good luck :roll

Yes, if it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, its a duck! YES, that is overwork!!!

GET OUT OF TEXAS! Where is your labor board? You could kill folks working like that. Is your administration crazy?! I would not put my license on the line that way for anything. Your job sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen.