:monkeydance: Hello, I am an LPN in a nursing home and recently my job has had me so frustrated I just wanted to quit. The working environment can be unbarable at times. And it doesn't seem like there is any help coming any time soon. My frustrations are as follows
1. coworkers unwilling to help ease the load (24hr nursing) they think that if it didn't happen on their shift then it just didn't happen and then it is left for me to finish when i get back the next day or sometimes even the next week.
2. Residents have rights, what about the employees, residents are expected to be treated a certain way...this is their home, but what about the care givers, its not fair that the residents are able to speak and treat the workers anyway they feel like, to the point that most of the workers feel like slaves, and sometimes even in tears.
3. leadership abilities, what is the point of giving a nurse the right to lead a group of CNA' and discipline them if it wont be followed up on, or if the cna will retaliate against the nurse
4. gossip and team work, alot of nurse feel that they can do no wrong, and they are constantly trying to find fault in other nurses work, and continuously tattle tailing on each other instead of offering a right and wrong solution, nobody is perfect.
1)coworkers- alot of my co-workers are just plain lazy, they think if it didnt happen on their shift then it didnt happen and loads of work is often left for me to finish, i have gone to the supervisor over this many times and all that is said is we all need to get along...well duh!! I am so tired of work being put onto my shift 7-3 which is where alot of all the politics goes on, it is very busy on 7-3 and i barely have time to do med pass let alone deal with families, Dr's, therepy, social services, and all the other million and one charting things i have. Discharges and admissions. But dont dare ask the next shift to finish up for you, its not their job..bull honky, its all of our jobs and i am so sick of hearing that excuse, I have my 3-11 nurse who absolutly refuses to do straight cath for urine specimen, it frustrates me, she should atleast try to get it even if on the cammode, but she refuses saying it is 11-7 responsability, well yes usually but if you have the time then help them out and just get it. dont be so lazy.and why is it that alllllllll order clarifications have to be done on 7-3 why cant 3-11 do it, or why cant 11-7 send a fax to the office? Nope it is left for me to do. excuses , excuses. GRRRRRRR
2)employee rights, I have this one resident who is verbally and physically abusive to the staff, she calls the cna's ******s, and has called me a fat B on several occasions, she will hit the cna's and she will scratch them drawing blood, this woman is very alert and oriented but the daughter says "its her alzheimers" this woman has no dx of the disease but we are still supposed to put up with it. the daughter will stand at the nurses cart or desk for 30 minutes just baggering the nurse for things and no matter how many times the nurse explains how busy she is the daughter says" i know but......." I had to hide in my unit mgr's office on my lunch break one time, and as soon as i walked out there she was waiting for me....give me a break lady...let me get my work done, as if your mom is the only one i have to take care of, her mom was on another floor in the building and the administrator told her and her mom they had to go to another facility due to the abuse , and then they apologized so the facility decided just to move them to my floor, at first they were fine, but once they got comfortable all hell broke lose, now if an employee treated either one of them the same way, that employee would be fired or suspended, why are these people allowed to get away with so much?
3) leadership is one thing a nurse is required to display, and also is given the ability to use ones own judgment for discipline, but how can we discipline the cna's when they decide to retaliate after being disciplined, i recently wrote up a cna for insubordination. it was on 11-7 and i caught her several times on several different occasions not doing her rounds and leaving residents wet all night, but still having time to go out and smoke every hour. I gave her several verbal warnings, one night I was just fed up, a womans bed was soaked from head to toe and the sheets were brown, and we already had this woman on ABT's for UTI. So i wrote up the cna. A week later I was being called into the office for a claim that i was picking on the cna, and that i was racist, since she was spanish. which i am totally not. and i couldnt understand why several other nurses have complained about this same cna but when i finally write her up i am the bad guy. I explained to the DON how are we to make a change and get ahold of this problem if every time we write up the cna's they think they can get out of it by just complaining, well needless to say a few other cna's came to my rescue and oblidged that the cna in question is lazy and has had several warnings, therefore i was off the hook. But it shouldnt be like that AT ALL..
4) why must nurses feel that they do no wrong. Im sorry but all nurses make mistakes some greater than others, but who is anyone to point the finger. If you see something that isnt too terribly wrong pull the nurse to the side and give them the heads up, cause you never know when you might need each other for something. dont be so quick to point out all the mistakes because it will come back on you, I have seen it happen so many times, certain nurses get comfortable and think they are perfect, then one mistake and of course the others nurses are just waiting for that day, then what, that nurse is fired, now if they would have played by the "nursing guide" and been nicer and more helpful they might still have a job.....I had an EGD done a few months ago and I was leaving work early at noon, so another nurse came in to fill my spot till 3 pm. As I am driving to the Dr office my phone rings, its my job, i say hello and its the nurse who relieved me,he called to ask me where i charted the BP for so and so because it wasnt in the mar( we have computer charting) so i told him its in the notebook with all the vitals, and that i wrote it down on a scrap piece of paper, he then continues to accuse me of giving BP meds with out taking the bp of the resident, I tried to explain that i did it , it just slipped my mind to write it down in the mar before i left and i was driving so i couldnt go through my pockets for the piece of paper, he is a regular weekend staff, and when i got back to work on monday nurses were coming to me questioning me about the incident, apparently he had blabbed to all the weekend staff that i dont do bp's before meds and so on and so forth, i told the mgr about it and once again "we need to work together" oh it made me so mad....i wanted to slap him, but all i could think of was the huge med error he just made with a certain resident and IV mag. so i didnt understand why he thought he was so invincible. I just blew it off, anyway recently I have undergone a pilonidal cyst removal and have been out of work for 2 weeks now, and as much pain as i am in i have to say " it couldnt have come at a better time"......
