Running Off-Leash Working Short

Somewhere in a Health Region in Saskatchewan

One of our members reports that they recently worked 3 evening shifts over the course of a weekend and of those 3 shifts, they worked 2 of them short – the first one for a 4 hour period and the next for an 8 hour period.

12 hours over 72 hours may not seem like much but that is the equivalent of a full waking day for residents who rely on these staff people for their day-to-day needs.

But if you think about minimum hours of care for a person who has intensive needs, which is 2 hours per day/person, this adds up to 6 people potentially not receiving the appropriate amount of care every time that there are 12 hours worked short.

At minimum standards of care for less intensive needs, which are 45 minutes/per day/ person, we are looking at approximately up to 26 people in a 12 hour span that aren’t getting the assistance they need.

This is not fair to the residents who rely on the appropriate level of care that they need.

It puts pressure on staff to make things happen quickly and tires them out.

To add further stress to the issue, managers aren’t granting summer holidays if there are already 2 people off because they don’t want to run short.