Aide & Nursing Home regulation questions

[Miss Irene]

I'm not certain where to begin so please bare with me. I have been a Certified Nursing Assistant for over a decade. When I became and aide ( at the age of 16 ) I loved what I did. I have always loved spending time with elderly people. However I find myself hating my work more and more. I recently started working for a local nursing home, after working for Nursing agencies for a few years. I dread going to work, I am just so stressed every day. I guess you could say I am fed up with what I call the politics of Nursing Homes and their greed.

The Nursing Home I work for has two seperate units, and each unit has two halls. Unit one is the behavioral unit. Unit one is always staffed better than Unit two, even if Unit two has less empty beds than unit one. Each Unit has 62 beds. On 2nd shift there are 6 aides on Unit one everyday, and usually 5 aides on Unit two. On 3rd shift there are only two aides per Unit. On Unit two there are three residents that should be on the "behavioral Unit", however the DON and other higher ups refuse to relocate them to that Unit. It is rather common for the aides to have to do one on one with these residents, leaving four aides to take care of the other residents. It is just crazy. I feel so bad for the other residents, who in my opinion are being neglected. It is not uncommon for a resident to have to wait 15 minutes or more for an aide to answer their call bell. Call bells are everyones responsibility however you won't see an LPN answer one. I actually over heard a resident ask our one LPN if they could help the resident get their sock off. The LPN replied one of the girls will be in soon to take care of you. Seriously it would have only taken two seconds.

We have several people on isolation. We recently got a new resident who is on isolation, no report was given as to what the resident had or what precautions to take. When us aides asked our RN Supervisor why the person was on isolation and what precautions were to be used, we were told nothing on the residents condition and that we were to just wear gloves. Two days later we found out that the resident has VRE. This facility doesn't use biohazard isolation bins in any of the isolation rooms. They allow all of the residents dirty linens and everything else to come out into the hall openly. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of isolation?

This facility also takes on residents that it can not appropriately accomodate. We have obese residents who can not use the bathroom in their own room because the bathrooms are too small for the residents wheelchairs to fit into. These same residents can not use the toilet in our central shower rooms because the toilet is too small due to the hand bars.

Can this facility continue to get away with this? Is there a patient/resident to aide ratio in PA?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am just so fed up, I fear that one of these days I will be pushed over the edge. There are days where it takes all I have not to walk out in the middle of my shift. The fact that I care about my residents and co-workers keeps me from walking out thus far.

[Miss Irene]

I forgot to mention a few things in my original post. I have always been informed that it is a major violation to feed more than one patient at a time. At the Nursing Home I worked for when I first became an aide, State had a girl fired for feeding more than one person at a time. The reasoing behind it was that the person doing the feeding could accidently use the wrong spoon on the wrong person, or give them the wrong food. This is the only facility that I have worked in that actually tell you to feed two people at a time.

I understand that the more you do for a resident the more money the facility will make. That is why most Nursing Homes take advantage of extra programs, such as a toileting program and different therapy programs. We have residents at work who require the use of a lift ( sit/stand, or passive ) to transfer safely, however these same people are on a walking program. Honestly how do you walk someone 100 ft when they can't even stand? At one point in time I wanted to go to school to become an RN, however I'm begining to think I need to walk away from it all. I am just so sick of the human assembly line we all call Nursing Homes.

[rosey2007]

I feel the same way that you do about nursing homes. Everyone says there are good ones out there. I have worked at many and haven't found one yet. These poor folks are treated like cattle and it horrible. I am currently working at a place that doesn't take things seriously until state or an injury happens.

[caliotter3]

Getting an LPN or RN license will broaden your opportunities. You might want to decide whether or not to pursue climbing the nursing ladder before you decide to leave healthcare altogether. Then again, maybe all you need is a very good vacation, perhaps a leave of absence for three weeks or a month to de-stress. Any way you look at it, you need to deal with your burn out or it will negatively affect your health. No job is worth that. Good luck.

[Future_Lpn]

I would make that anonoymous call to the state and report the things ur telling us about. Thats the only way it'll change. When the faculity is paying thousands in fines they will have to clean up their act since the state will keep on them till they do. It happened at my place recently due to elopement, then from there a whole lot of other violations came to light. Things will never be perfect but its somewhat better.

Make that call.