Im an LTC Floor Nurse/Charge Nurse. Im an LPN and i have 41 patients on a brutally busy 3pm-11pm shift in a busy rural nursing home. But i wasnt always....
For nearly four years, from the ripe age of 16 and a half to the age of 20, i was a Male CNA in the LTC Enviroment. I remember all the demands and physically exhausting shifts of turning, changing , getting endless vitals on heavy patients. Feeding patients. Working short. Low pay. Broken back. Little respect. CNAs i get you. Ive been there. I understand. But what do i miss? 2pm-10pm met 2pm-10pm. In between rounds i was able to sit down, eat, socialize with co workers and basically have little emotiomal stress. There was no staying 2-3 hours over.
Flashforward! Im a 20 year old male Nurse who is still considered a kid by most residents. Recently at one of the CNA staff meetings one of the Aides made the comment. Of why cant the Nurse help ? All they do is pass meds for two hours and sit on there lazy butt for 6? That burned me up. CNAs in LTC, you must understand! Being a Nurse means!
1. We are responsible for these residents well being and life, and have a professional license bound by the board of nursing to protect. When residents fall, or get injured because of your carelessness, we have to stay 30 minutes over to complete a thorough incident report to cover our own behind. I know its not always your fault but when your sitting on the hall reading fifty shades of gray, and the fall risk bed is 10 feet high in the air, the bed alarm is turned off, well heck ?
2. Upon clocking in for our shift, us Nurses already have about 8 hours and 15 minutes of work cut out for us. That is without anything extra that may come up, like an incident, new physician orders, or god forbid a 2 hour complex full 3-11 LTC Admit.
We have to complete about 2 hpurs worth of time consuming Medication Admin Record on computer. Roughly about 10-12 Narrative Nurses Notes that determines whether or not the facility will get paid for the services they provide. On 3-11 a Treatment record. We have to chart on active incident reports. Notify family members of changes. Reorder medications. Handle facility conflicts. The list goes on and on. Its a mentally draining and exhausting overwhelmong kind of fatigue that no CNA will ever understand unless there sitting behind that nurses station as a Licensed Nurse having to make mentally draining independent decisions. And yes we are sitting down. But this does not mean that we are not slammed and drowning trying to complete very important documentation.
3. Management. We are all being scolded about overtime. A Nurse needs every free moment he or she can to even take a stab at finishing in 8 hours. Very rarely do CNAs work for eight straight hours without breakinh and clock out more than 15 minutes after shift change. So when a Nurse teels you to hold on there very busy, they more than likely are. And you must understand that while flying out the building after 8 hours the nurse may be staying anothet hour or two or heck even three to finish up crucial documentation, and them get accused of just riding the clock by management.
Message to CNAs from a used to be turned nurse. When a Nurse delegates to you , and you feel rudely interupted from reading your book, or socializing with co workers, dont roll your eyes, stump your feet, mouth off , becuse you think the nurse is just being lazy. I can tell you as an ex CNA now Nurse, you truly have no way to understand what the nurse is going through and workload and responsibilty placed on Floor Nurses in LTC. So dont judge. Just do, you will still have plenty time to socialize and clock out on time.
But we truly thank you CNAs for what you do. And the help you provide us. Without you guys we would be responsible for the total care of 40 patients. I dont even wanna see that dark day.
