I know I'm butting into a conversation, but do you what the benefits are as a nurse tech??
In some facilities, once you have been completed 1st semester of nursing school and get checked off on certain skills (foley, NG, dobhoff, etc - may be more, may be less) though nursing school, you can perform them. This gives you the opportunity to practice this skills on live patients (as the nurse deems appropriate). At least where I work, a CNA cannot do these skills.
I am in KC and I worked as an aide for 3 1/2 years before I graduated from nursing school.
I worked for an agency and made about $14/hr. Then I wanted to get to practice my skills so I went to a facility that let me do that and my wage dropped to $11/hr as a first year and $12/hr as a second year. I never got any benefits at either place since I only worked part time.
2 years ago I started with St. Luke's Hospital (on the Plaza in KCMO) with out ANY healthcare background (they train you as a Patient Care Technician) and I started off, the first day of training, at $12.00 and hour with full benefits for my husband and I.
St. Luke's also offers tuition reimbursement after 90 days on the job for part time and full time employees- I just graduated from an LPN program a week ago, and they reimbursed for all of it. I am transferring to another St. Luke's facility and will to start as an LPN on a med surg floor after I pass boards. I plan to bridge to RN in the next year, and St. Luke's again to the rescue!
I feel very fortunate that St. Luke's really takes care of their employees!
Dawn:redbeathe:heartbeat:redbeathe:heartbeat
In SEK it varies greatly, from 6.50 to 10.00 an hour at LTC et hospitals. Agency pays 10-14 an hour.
Seems the cycle with CNAs that they pay crap as long as they can. Then they don't have hardly any CNAs, and the ones they do have aren't so hot, so they start using agency.... CNAs that have been there a long time get mad cuz these agency people are making twice what they are making and then quit. So the facility decides they need to pay more per hour to save themselves money and improve continuity of care, lol - they are usually 1-2 years too slow to realize this tho~
My point is, sorry for the derail, you can start out at 10 an hour as a CNA. You may just need to look past the first ad in the paper to find a place that has a high demand and is willing to compensate for it.
jjmorris
7 Posts
I am obtaining my cna this summer and am in the middle of getting my accociate's, does anyone know what cna's start out at? thanks