Shame on Governor Carcieri for vetoing a bill that would protect the patients as well as the nurses of Rhode Island. As a nurse of 23 years I have seen firsthand the problems that occur when a nurse is forced to work mandatory overtime. Our job requires us to be mentally alert as well as physically able to care for patients. We need to assess the smallest change in a patient as well as monitor any number of pieces of equipment or calculate medication dosages that can have life-or-death consequences. So we need to be at the top of our game each and every day that we work.

Nurses by nature are very caring individuals, and the last thing we would want to do is put any patient’s life in jeopardy, but when we are forced into mandatory overtime that is exactly what the hospitals are doing to the patients placed into their care.

When you force us to work overtime it is the equivalent of having a nurse work under the influence of drugs or alcohol. This is why I must ask what was the governor thinking in vetoing a bill that would protect the patients of Rhode Island. Don’t tell us that the hospitals will resolve this problem. They have had 17 years to fix this problem but the problem has only been getting worse and more and more nurses are being mandated to work overtime.

The only hope we have now is that the Senate and House quickly override this veto for the safety of the patients and nurses in Rhode Island. The patients we care for deserve nurses who have not been mandated to work overtime.

LYNN BLAIS, R.N.

North Providence