Nursing Assistant Staffing/ Patient Loads

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Specializes in Telemetry, Med-Surg, ED, Psych.

As a former Nurse Assistant, I am all to familiar with terrible CNA patient loads. In LTC, I had up to 40 residents by myself (11-7 shift). WHen i was in acute care med-surg, I usually had 10 by myself.

I recently noticed that the Patient Care Assistants on my unit usually have the entire floor by themselves - 26 acute care patients for 1 PCA. They are expected to preform all the I/O's (Foley, JP, Hemovac, Colostomy), Q2/Q4 vital signs, comfort care, ambulating, turning, admits, daily weights, computer documentation and other things by themselves. This is overboard. I was a CNA and a hard worker, but this is outrageous for 1 person. I have seen a few PCA's on the verge of tears by the end of a 12-hour shift.

Just an observation

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As a former Nurse Assistant, I am all to familiar with terrible CNA patient loads. In LTC, I had up to 40 residents by myself (11-7 shift). WHen i was in acute care med-surg, I usually had 10 by myself.

I recently noticed that the Patient Care Assistants on my unit usually have the entire floor by themselves - 26 acute care patients for 1 PCA. They are expected to preform all the I/O's (Foley, JP, Hemovac, Colostomy), Q2/Q4 vital signs, comfort care, ambulating, turning, admits, daily weights, computer documentation and other things by themselves. This is overboard. I was a CNA and a hard worker, but this is outrageous for 1 person. I have seen a few PCA's on the verge of tears by the end of a 12-hour shift.

Just an observation

I know your outrage is justified.

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As a former CNA I definitely feel their pain. And at my hospital (in San Francisco) to "help solve the budget crisis" they are cutting the wages of the CNAs. And my hospital aspires to "magnet status"- yeah, like that can ever happen when the falls/negative outcomes skyrocket while patient/nurse satisfaction levels plummet.

On the other hand, when the rank and file union members were asked for some concessions which were in my mind reasonable, they all voted "no" with the realization that the result would be layoffs. Sigh.

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40 residents by yourself????? Are you kidding? And my staff complains because I have 4 CNA's to less than 40 residents. They have no idea how lucky they are!

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Specializes in Med/Surg/Ortho/Uro/Rehab CNA.
this is overboard. i was a cna and a hard worker, but this is outrageous for 1 person. i have seen a few pca's on the verge of tears by the end of a 12-hour shift.

no joke! i am a cna now working in ltc and i have 20 to 40 residents :aln: (40+ if someone calls off:uhoh21:). there might be another cna depending on the hallway i'm assigned to. it's simply ridiculous. and before i moved to a little town and changed jobs i worked at a big hospital in a big city in rpcu, we admitted anything from vertigo to tbis, chis, amputees, guillain barre syndrome, morbidly obese pts who needed rehab to function, cauda equina syndrome, paraplegics, knees, hips, mrsa, c.diff, some cancer pts occationally... and we had 8-10pts/cna. not too bad, it was managable as long as everyone came to work... yeah, :lol2: about 50% of the time everyone showed up (i worked nights there too). i quit that job because they were switching to a different staff (nurse/cna) ratio. originally 4 cnas + a float cna/ 4nurses + a charge nurse. they swtiched to 3 cnas (no float) & 5 nurses per shift (plus a charge)... tell me why that would make sense to report to 2 different nurses (not to mention that one nurse doesn't care if the other nurse asked you to do something, they need something done for their pt now:selfbonk:.) .......uuurrrrggg, i can't wait to be a nurse.:anbd:

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