CNA Life

[1010MASH]

I am a CNA. I take my job very serious and have the heart, compassion and respect for the job. I have personal expierence in this line of work. I helped care for my dying mother at home 10 yrs ago and most recently, my husband's mother who passed away at home as well.I also helped care for my aging grandparents and worked in the hosp where I grew up.

I work part time for an assisted living place right now. There are several young women who have never worked in the industry and have no CNA expierence nor certification. The place where I work will hire you without any expierence. My first two days was a joke. I was trained by a young woman who knew nothing about the job. She had only been working there 2 weeks prior to me getting hired. Her lack of compassion & respect for the elderly was shocking.Cleanliness did not exist with her.She would change a urine soaked brief or pad without gloves and then walk out the room without washing her hands. She would enter another room and do the same.Going from resident to resident.I kept telling her she needed to wear gloves and wash her hands.She said she hated wearing gloves and will wash her hands later on.

It just blows my mind how a place like this can just hire ppl off the streets and refuse to train them the right way. Since I been working there, the neglect has gotten worse. This girl has grown tired of her job and is now refusing to help the residents.I have come into my shift, whereas many residents were left to lay in urine soaked sheets and clothes. Just yesterday one of the residents had soaked thru her bed, clothes and etc. She was crying. She said she had the call light going on since 12 noon(my shift starts at 3pm) and pleaded for help in going to the rest room but they ignored her calls.

It breaks my heart watching all this neglect unfold. Reporting it to our super does no good. She calls it as, "tattle telling" on a coworker and wants us to settle the disagreement between each other. Your thoughts?

[IEDave, ASN, CNA, LVN]

Presumably, as a CNA you are a mandated reporter, no? You've got repeated instances of patient safety issues, infection control issues & outright neglect plus an unwillingness on management's part to intervene. Report 'em to the ombudsman & go find somewhere else to work.

----- Dave

[northernguy]

Theres no way to know what the situation is only hearing one side of the story. The fact management used the word tattle tale raises red flags in my mind, that doesnt seem like a word most supervisors would use lightly. It may be that as a brand new aide with no experience, your opinion isnt really trusted, or you complained in a manner that seemed petty or vindictive to them.

Part of being a good CNA is working well with others. You have to show compassion not only to the residents and patients, but other coworkers, some of whom may struggle at times. A new aide going up against coworkers usually ends poorly for the new aide, thats just reality. the best thing to do is try to encourage better treatment of the residents and lead by example. Complaining or reporting probably isnt going to help much until you are a proven aide whos done this job for a while.

Obviously leaving someone soaked in urine and ignoring their call light for 3 hours is inexcusable, IF that is truly the case. Were the other aides busy, were they just sitting around talking on the phone?

I should add Ive never worked in assisted living and never worked with aides who werent Certified, so it may be that assisted living doesnt require certificiation and these aides really dont have a clue, in which case maybe you should report the facility or find another place to work.

[1010MASH]

In Assisted living, they don't require certifications for anything.Also, FYI:I have never reported anything to my supervisor but the woman I work with at night has and we were all called into a meeting where our super said she did not like being involved in issues where residents were treated poorly. As she said, "work the problem out amongst yourselves, I don't like tattle tales." She also brought up several HIPPA violations by 2 other girls who are friends. A resident got nervous and reported them to our supervisor. According to our super, these 2 dingbats were bad mouthing another resident and talking about thier health issues in the presence of a residence, while in the resident's personal room. Our super told these girls (while laughing) that what they just did was grounds for immediate termination, but told them to not worry that she was neither writing them up nor firing them. She laughed and said, "just don't do it again and if you are going to do it, don't do it in another resident's room where they can hear." Our super has only been on the job for 3 months and says she is an LVN, yet she told me that she has never, ever, done any kind of CNA work nor worked in a hospital. As far as everything else I stated, its not hearsay because I was present and I saw and heard the way the residents looked and what they have said to me. A few confided in me last night that they were going to ask family members to remove them from the facility immediately. I have seen many rashes and many have infections from not getting wiped or cleaned up. I have brought this to my supers attn once and she said they came into the facility like that already and that it was not the facilities fault. I have reported to the state already and I am seeking employment elsewhere, away from this "Mickey Mouse" place.

[nguyency77, CNA]

I'm with you there-- a new job sounds like it would be good for you. Your work sounds a lot like my clinical site. I don't know what the case is with the management of some AL and LTC facilities.

[Getting To Great]

Report them and call State and Department of Health...That is ABUSE! If your aware of this kind of condition towards the resident; and God forbid that something happens, you will be held responsible. You need to report them/her to an outside source, if you superior is not responding. That is part of your CNA training and vows.