Deceptive firing practices

[TLDey]

I am a Private Duty nurse with a home client who requires both an aide and a nurse 24/7. Both the client and her spouse have mood and temper fluctuations, and they are frequently requesting staff replacements. The company I work for replaces staff as asked, but they will lie to the current staff, saying that the client likes them and things are going well, at the same time they are looking for and training replacements. Once the replacement is ready to be added to the schedule, the current worker is let go. I think the company and the client and spouse are afraid to tell current workers that things aren't working out, for fear that the worker might react negatively towards the client. How do other companies handle replacing staff on a case? (Three people have been fired off the case within the past two months, and the company doesn't feel any responsibility to try to have other work to offer them).

[ventmommy]

Private duty kind of sounds awful to me. Is it boring? What are the good aspects? I am just curious as this is something I have never experienced so I do not have a clue.....

From a mom perspective, I suppose it could be boring in the sense that some kids have nursing for nothing more than a g-tube or that it can be repetitive (my son would be suctioned sometimes 20x an hour). But if you really want to learn about a specific set of diagnoses and how they are related to each other, having just one patient gives you the time to do that. You can also learn a lot from the PT/OT/ST/RT that you might not get in a more fast paced setting. My son had a TBI. Prior to the TBI he was healthy. But due to the TBI, his primary diagnosis was HIE. And he had 17 other diagnoses.

For me, if I had a fun nurse, it made my day better. It was way better to be at appointments with a nurse that I could trust AND I could have a conversation with.

The good aspects - nurses made a difference every single day in the life of my son as well as in our whole family.

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Thank you for that input ventmommy.

[SDALPN]

Crunch, its a wonderful job with the right family. But so many families are so dysfunctional that its getting harder to find a decent, appreciative family. And there is always comprimise on both sides. Plus the families tend to have issues they haven't worked through because of having a special needs child. The parents can be delusional (thinking their basically non-responsive child will walk and talk again), or the parents don't care (lack of support from parents to purchase needed items, ignoring report from nurses, expecting nurses to take the role of the parent), or many other issues related to how they feel about their child's special needs. Then there are the families that are super nice and want to learn and the home is infested with roaches....comprimise? or deal with a crazy parent?

[CrunchRN, ADN, RN]

Interesting. Do you do adults also?

[Katie13LPN]

I cannot stand private duty nursing. I always get fired. But I feel I am at most to blame because I had trouble doing all the repetitive paper work involved. I would write a lot but that did not get me anywhere good. I loved certain aspects of it.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

It's true: if you get a 'good' family - it's the best job EVER (well, except for the pay...), but if you get a 'strange' family - they could pay you quadruple and it would not be enough.

I had the BEST set-up ever, (night shift, exceptionally nice parents who sincerely thanked me every single morning when I left, adorable vent baby) but was very happy to 'get fired' when my little sweetie got off the vent and decannulated. She'll be five next week, and going to kindergarten in the fall WITHOUT a nurse.

[nursel56]

Katie the agencies I work for actually use flow sheets and check-off forms with a small space for the narrative. They don't want you to write a novel though some nurses always do!

marycarney - I love hearing about kids like that! One of the hardest things for both nurses and family is the thought "they will never get better". Very tough to deal with.

[CloudySue]

I had the BEST set-up ever, (night shift, exceptionally nice parents who sincerely thanked me every single morning when I left, adorable vent baby) but was very happy to 'get fired' when my little sweetie got off the vent and decannulated. She'll be five next week, and going to kindergarten in the fall WITHOUT a nurse.

I have a similar situation coming up, my wonderful family's little girl is having surgery soon to repair her tracheomalacia and will be decannulated eventually. I'm going to miss this case! But good for her!