on-call work whilst pregnant

[fabulous]

hi all,
i am a hospital pharmacist and 2 months pregnant. i have notified my employers that i do not wish to undertake on call duties (due to start next month) because i am finding it hard just coping with 37.5hrs a week due to sickness and tiredness. if i do an on-call then i would basically be expected to deal with queries during the pharmacy closing hours as well as my 37.5 hours a week-basically be on the beck and call 24 hours a day. i told my employer that i am worried that i may be too sick or tired to cope with the extra duties. however my manager and the managers above him insist that i do the on calls until i go on maternity.
i think this is really unfair and that my needs are not being taken into account. i will be talking to my gp and occupational health regarding this issue. does anyone else on here think that my employers are being unreasonable or has anyone been in my situation.

[Sir_Dispensalot]

have a nosey at this page if a bit of googling hasnt already been done : Working when pregnant : Directgov - Parents

[hibernia]

hi all,
i am a hospital pharmacist and 2 months pregnant. i have notified my employers that i do not wish to undertake on call duties (due to start next month) because i am finding it hard just coping with 37.5hrs a week due to sickness and tiredness. if i do an on-call then i would basically be expected to deal with queries during the pharmacy closing hours as well as my 37.5 hours a week-basically be on the beck and call 24 hours a day. i told my employer that i am worried that i may be too sick or tired to cope with the extra duties. however my manager and the managers above him insist that i do the on calls until i go on maternity.

You are already worrying about things that MAY happen. In a months's time the sickness may well have passed so try to be positive. If you are too ill to do your duties then you will have to take sick leave but it is best to try to view pregnancy as a normal condition rather than an illness.

For many pregnant pharmacists, including myself at one time, 37.5 hours would have seemed like part time work. Self employed women in many fields, including pharmacy, work right up until their baby is born and return to work within weeks. I did it and I don't recommend it but I didn't have a manager above me to complain to and if you think yours lack understanding try moaning to your bank manager.

Tiredness is a part of pregnancy and a much bigger part of motherhood, which is all about being at the beck and call of a noisy and very demanding little person 24 hours a day. Throw in a toddler and I was glad to go to work for a rest!

[bleepholder]

i think your setting yourself up to fail already!

How do you know you won't be able to do the oncall..have you already tried it? Maybe give it a go, and if you don't manage to see it through, at least your managers will see that you can't cope with it and may be a little more sympathetic towards you...By saying you can't do it, even before you have tried it, they may see it as you shirking your duties??

From their point of view, you signed a contract so they will probably hold you to that contract?!?!

from my oncall experience its often better sitting in a pahrmacy sorting stuff out, than having to run round wards sorting stuff out! you can control your workload a lot more whilst being oncall

[fabulous]

to bleepholder- i still have to run around wards all day 9-5 during pharmacy opening hours whilst doing oncall-so finish shift at 5pm and then on call till 9am the next morning for 7 days a week. so basically on call is on top of my working hours. also the on call is not on my contract its just that their short staffed and want to bully me into doing it rather than amend their rota.
my manager is lazy and manipulative. he hasnt been supportive of me as a pregnant employee. told me nothing about my rights at work. not even bothered to do a risk assessment of my duties as part of health and safety.
pregnancy is different for everyone, i have had terrible sickness, i cant eat because the sight of food makes me want to throw up and i am tired all the time. at the moment when i come home from work i just curl up and lie in bed-its the only peace i get. i dont want to do the on-call because i feel as though i wont have sufficient rest and that can impair my performance and i dont want to be in the position where i am really sick and cant respond to a call.
but thank you all for your comments anyway.

[bleepholder]

surely the europen working directive comes into play!!! working from 9am monday until 9am the following monday seems a little hard to believe....not even doctors are put under that much pressure......you are either doing days or nights..not both!! if thats the case then you are seriously being screwed over!!

if your not contractd to do it, then they can't bully you into doing it....i can appreciate pregnancy is difficult for some, but being a guy i can't really fully appreciate the feeling!! lol

how busy is your oncall..do you get to work from gome at 5pm until 9am...you never know you may only get 2 calls in a night...beats the 50 or so each night (and they were the good nights!) i had to contend with when i was oncall!!!

[fabulous]

seriously bleepholder when doing on call at our trust you have do work your normal daytime hours and night-at least 8 other pharmacists do it. and they get reimbursed less than you would make locuming on a weekday per on call.
i know its not in my contract but at the job interview i said i would do it if needed. but i wasnt pregnant then and handnt considered that, should i have added the disclaimer " but not in unforseen circumstances". anyway my manager initially said i wouldnt have to do it and has now gone back on his word.
i am confused with regards to how the working time regulations come into play coz during on call you dont get a day off or any uninterruped rest in 24 hours. but it must be okay because the other pharmacists do it. i will try to find out more.

[bleepholder]

and you work ALL day AND night for 7 days...either you are all pumped up on pro plus or the oncalls are very quiet for them to be able to get away with making you work such horrible hours!!!

i'm assuming you work the day and oncall in the night, then get some sort of compensatory rest for doing the shift????

i know the nhs is bad, but didn't think it was that bad?!?!?!

[fabulous]

i think there is some lieu time given to compensate. the on calls are not usually that busy. its just imcompetant nursing staff usually asking silly questions in the middle of the night. the thing is that although returning to the hospital to discharge patients is not an on call service, pharmacists still have to do it if requested by bed managers even though in most cases the discharge was written by the doctor well before the pharmacy closed at 5pm.
we even have to do late nights (additional 30mins-1hr) on weekdays to try and help get last minute work done. sometimes wards will phone 10mins before closing time and say will you accept 8 discharges!-i mean what do they do all day long?
i am sick of the crap pharmacists accept. we should charge fees that adequately compensate for calling us out at all hours of the night. i only joined the nhs to improve my clinical knowledge and felt that a clinical diploma will help me towards becoming a teacher practitioner. but as you can see its very clear why the nhs cannot retain pharmacists.

[bleepholder]

maybe your hospital needs to alter its rocedures on when to accept discharges. where i work, we have a cut off time of 6pm for doing discharge prescriptions unless they ahve either gone through the bed manager or from an admissions ward! and you'll get the incompetent nursing staff wherever you go!

i would never come in in the middle of the night to do a discharge prescription....could always get the pt to come back in the morning...what drug regimes require you to take medication at 4am when most likely you are fast asleep.....and the fact they are going home probably indicates they aren't that sick!!

but welcome to the nhs!!......i doubt being able to charge for access to an oncall pharmacist will work..surely defeats the object of what the nhs is all about.."free to all"