Nurse Salaries

Many people in the nursing industy that are working in an understaffed hospital are able to make quite a bit of money in over time pay which is great for the hospital and the nurse.

However, there can be a down side to it because if the nurses keep working overtime day after day, week after week and month after month, it shows that there is a flaw in the system because so many overtime hourse on a regular basis should not exist. Also, it is proven that the more over time hours a nurse works the more likely that the nurse will make a mistake.

It was recently reported in the Toronto Sun that a nurse in Montreal, Quebec worked so many 16 hour shifts last year that he "racked up $127,715(CAD) in overtime pay". Compare this to his actual salary which is $102,285 and this seems like an insanely amount of hours to work.

Sure, if the nurses on staff can handle the extra shifts its great because of the money but the problem starts happening when the nurses are not able to cover shifts and mistakes start happening.

The hospital and the nurses in question should closely examine this because in the long run, this opens up situations where if a mistake does take place, then a hospital lawsuit for negligence is imminent. Just make a Google search for hospital negligence lawsuit and you will see that the top results are lawyers that specialize in hospital negligence. Especially since according to that article, this has been going on for over a year.