
P.E.I. nurses lead country in working overtime in July
They may not want to, but when nurses on P.E.I. get asked to work on their days off or to stay late, they often do.
“It’s our own personal guilt sometimes, where we feel if we don’t come in, there’ll be no one to help out,” said Barbara Brookins, president of the P.E.I. Nurses Union.
“So we pick up, and agree to pick up more than we should.”
In fact, according to Statistics Canada, a higher percentage of nurses worked overtime on P.E.I. than in any other province in Canada in July.
Thirty-three per cent of P.E.I. nurses — one in three — worked overtime during the reference week for Statistics Canada’s labour force survey, which was released on Friday. Nationally, 25 per cent, or one in four, worked overtime.
On average, P.E.I. nurses worked 2.5 hours of overtime in the reference week...