Checking every hour for feedback

Published Aug 26, 2004

64 Posts

I posted this yesterday. I am hoping someone will make a comment...good or bad. I called these people today to inquire about my check and was told abruptly that it would be mailed and hung up on. I am worried I won't even get payed for the last 40 hours I worked.

I am a CNA and I recently started work at a head/spinal cord injury care center. I was on my very first day of being off orientation and I was sent to a step down unit from the vent unit...a very heavy floor. I was supposed to be paired with a buddy to show me the routine. Once I got there however, I was given a sheet of paper with 15 patients on it..most of them hoyers or sarah lifts and 6 of them were colostomy and foley bags/drainage bags. THe other CNA's were unfriendly and dismissive and actually added two residents onto my paper from their lists...two patients there for cancer related issues. THey insisted they were mine.

I could not find help to get people out of bed...it took the other girl to be asked a few times and several minutes. I was not given a break but the other girls seemed to have several breaks.

When I finally got to one of the more demanding patients (he has cancer, two foleys and a colostomy and drainage bag for a sore) he was furious with me for taking so long...I was afraid to ask for help and did not want to look incompetant...I did his cares myself and asisted the LPN in changing his stoma...I had put a very nice golf shirt on him and it became stained by the stoma/colostomy bad...I changed it and put the shirt in the personal laundy....being unaware that his wife does his laundry.

Aftwer that lunch trays came up and I went to help. I was ordered around by the CNA who was there with me and I think I delivered most of the trays myself. She then informed me she was going to lunch so I was left alone to pick up trays. I had two people to get to bed after lunch and I could not find a soul to help...I asked the unit manager for help and she said it was not her job and was very snotty...I asked her to tell me who a certain patient was so I could at least get him ready and she didn't even look up from her paperwork.

I then went down to speak to the woman who hired me and told her of my dilemma. SHe was very kind about it...she went back up to the unit with me and one of the other CNA's was on the elevator and overheard our conversation. SHe(the cna) went back to the unit and told them everything...but very exxagerated.

I tried to pull myself together and as I was turning a resident one of the CNA's came in and slammed the door and said "DID YOU TELL THE NURSING DIRECTOR THAT WE ARE ALL BEING MEAN TO YOU??"???" I couldn't believe it.

I walked out of the room to be told by another CNA that "mrs "jones" is looking for you!" I then had my head bitten off by the man with the golf shirt's wife...she followed me down the hall telling me how expensive the shirt was and how it was gone for good and I had to replace it. THe other staff saw this and just went the other way. I actually started crying and offered to let her take it out of my pay and she said that it was too late and you could not buy that brand name in this area. SHe then went to the administrator and to the nursing supervisor and told them how I cried in front of her husband and had lost his good shirt and did not give him mouth care until the afternoon.

Today I was called by human resources..put on speaker phone (god knows who else was there to hear my reaction) and told that from the feedback they received that it was best for them to terminate my employment...and thank you goodbye dial tone.

I then called them back and asked what exactly had I done to have this determination made and I was given a short abrupt answer that it was a team determination..I said "is it because I was too sensitive over what happened on the unit" and she said yes she had some feedback from a family member and some valuable clothing was misplaced and it was made known I had gotten upset in front of a patient and they just can't have that. I admit that once those tears get in my eyes I can't hide it no matter what...I tried to but the woman would not let me be...and why would I be put in that situation the first day off of orientation having never been on that unit?

May I just say this facility is disgusting as well...urinals filled to the rim sitting on bedstands all day, flies and nats dashing all over the place, sopping wet shower rooms with gloves all over the floor...chunks of hair on the shower trolley, toilets not flushed and foley bags placed in drawers with urine still in them. PAtients who are total cares have nails like vampires...lsharp, jagged and and dirty. Diabetes or not they should be neat and clean!

I am relieveved to be out of there and ashamed to be part of such a facility even briefly. Is there a way I could let someone know what goes on there so these patients can get the care and treatment they need...is it the department of nursing...is there a website or phone???

I was warned not to go there and ofcourse I did... They actually had a young TBI patient die after falling in the tub...obviously due to lack of supervision. Very upsetting.

Kris