Audit finds law is leaving health care workers unprotected

A law passed in 2008 scaling back mandatory overtime for health care workers was effectively quashed for nearly the entire four years of Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration when officials determined regulations to enact the law were too cumbersome.

But on Wednesday, Auditor General Eugene DePasquale issued an audit finding there’s still a lot of work to do in terms of protecting health care workers and their patients.

The law, which went into effect in July 2009, prohibited health care employers — such as hospitals and nursing homes — from routinely scheduling overtime for workers.

While the law allowed employers to mandate overtime for unforeseen emergencies, it also required health care facilities to seek other staff before making workers stay overtime and prohibited retaliation against workers who refuse to work excessive overtime.

The state had 18 months from the effective date to develop regulations. Those were ready in April 2010, but set aside after the administration “believed those regulations exceeded the scope of the statute,” according to Mr. DePasquale’s audit.

“Without the regulations, the department didn’t have the tools it needed to fully protect health care workers and the patients they serve,” Mr. DePasquale said in his report. “Not having regulations providing legal enforcement authority for a law is akin to having a car without an engine.”

The audit also found poor tracking of complaints that were made while the regulations were pending.

Sara Goulet, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Labor and Industry, which is in charge of enforcing the act, agreed with the audit.

“He’s doing his job and now we are saying, ‘You’re right, that has to happen.’ And now we are making it happen,” she said.

Ms. Goulet said the process of the audit showed that the Department of Labor and Industry had poor methods for tracking cases, so the department is creating a new database to track complaints against employers and also creating a central system for reporting problems.

The governor’s office has also responded by adding enough money to the department’s budget to hire five more investigators.