cna's who don't do their job

TBird81 · Oct 19, 2006

I started my job 6 weeks ago and my 2nd day of orientation I went with another aide (we'll call her "B") who infuriated me. She charted all of her patients as "bathed" even though none of them was ever given a full bath. If she changed the patients brief or cleaned them after a BM she considered that a bath. A lot of times she charts them as "refused bath" when what the patient really said was "can we wait until after breakfast (or lunch)." Never once during that day did she put water in the wash basin and get out the wash rags. She used the disposable wipes to clean their bottoms and sprayed some deoderant and anti-microbial spray on them and that was it. And yet B always told her nurses that the patients had been bathed. Our charge nurse/PCC asked me if B had actually bathed any patients and I told her no. So the next day B said "you can work with me again today" and our charge said she wanted me with someone else. I let our charge nurse know later that that wasn't an example that I intended to follow and thanked her for not having me work with her again. Our shifts are from 630a to 7p but if something happens during the 30 minute overlap of shift change she always says it's not her responsibility and the other shift needs to take care of it. Or instead of giving the next aide report on the patients she will hand them her patient roster with notes on it and say "I'm leaving." Last weekend she left and then we found out that one of her patients (who happens to be 300+ lbs and needs 3 people just to clean up) had told her an hour earlier that he had soiled himself and needed cleaned up but she left him. So myself and the other aide who were finishing our shift helped one of the aides coming on get him cleaned up. B constantly leaves the floor without telling anyone and comes back when she wants to. Lately she's been pairing up with one of the other aides and saying "lets go see if there's anything new in the giftshop" or some other excuse to leave the floor and leave me alone.
Sunday we had all just gotten there and I heard her tell the other aide "let's just fart around today." WHAT? Besides the fact that she "farts around" every day, what kind of attitude is that to have at work? I'm so sick of it and plan to talk to either my manager or charge nurse when I go to work on Friday. I'm just wondering if it will look like I'm the new girl stirring up trouble. How should I handle it? I also know that unless she is fired or quits, having someone get on to her will not make a difference. She will still do her job the same way.

And people wonder why hospitals get bad reviews! Am I the only one that relates working with the public as a customer service? Anyone supplying you with a job is a customer. Therefore patients are your customer in a sense considering you wouldnt have a job if the patient was not there!

25(2)+2 · Oct 19, 2006

has anyone ran into a problem where when you get residents up you walk them to the bathroom every morning and then get moved to another floor and come back months later to find that the residents have not been walked and have lost their ability to walk. i am a firm believer that if you keep them walking they won't lose the ability to walk. it may take a little longer but isn't it worth it if they keep the ability to walk?

BabyRN2Be · Oct 24, 2006

If a CNA is not doing a certain aspect of her job, and falsifying records about it, then she should be reported to the nurse. Her behavior is negatively affecting the care of a resident. I understand the feeling about being a tattletale, but this behavior could possibly escalate into more serious things, such as stating a resident was fed, when she was not, or lying about a resident's weight to hide a weight loss. (I've actually read about this happening.)

Tommy,

The problem is that this has been documented to the staff several times by Lana(Banana) and others (a traveler RN and other CNAs). Management is aware of the problem but so far nothing has been done. This CNA continues to be employed while not doing her job. Unless we hear differently from Lana, management has done nothing so far.

tammy10221961 · Oct 25, 2006

I have been working in a hospital ER where we have a couple of techs that disappear from the job. One is a paramedic that works days. He conitnually goes into the Dr Lounge and reads the paper or gets into their food. He also has left his wife and new baby for a woman that works in radiology. So if you can't find him in the Dr's Lounge you can find him hiding out in Xray.

The other is a female that works second shift in ER. She disappears into the varioius places and dones't show up for hours. She has even been caught out in the parking lot in her car having cigarettes and reading a magazine.

WHen you have to work with individuals like this it makes your job all the more difficult. In the ER you are extremely busy. We need more than 2 techs, aides, on the floor to cover all the patient cares.

Our DON and everyone else knows what these two people are doing but nothing is done about it. They still have their jobs and still disappear.

I get sooooooo agravated when I look at the schedule and see that I have to work with either one of these people because I know that they are going to hide out and then I'm going to have to run my a$$ off and I'm not going to be able to provide the proper patient care because I don't have the time.

I have been tempted to disappear myself when they are "working" but I can't sink that low. My first priority is to the patients.

chadash · Oct 26, 2006

I have been working in a hospital ER where we have a couple of techs that disappear from the job. One is a paramedic that works days. He conitnually goes into the Dr Lounge and reads the paper or gets into their food. He also has left his wife and new baby for a woman that works in radiology. So if you can't find him in the Dr's Lounge you can find him hiding out in Xray.
The other is a female that works second shift in ER. She disappears into the varioius places and dones't show up for hours. She has even been caught out in the parking lot in her car having cigarettes and reading a magazine.
WHen you have to work with individuals like this it makes your job all the more difficult. In the ER you are extremely busy. We need more than 2 techs, aides, on the floor to cover all the patient cares.
Our DON and everyone else knows what these two people are doing but nothing is done about it. They still have their jobs and still disappear.
I get sooooooo agravated when I look at the schedule and see that I have to work with either one of these people because I know that they are going to hide out and then I'm going to have to run my a$$ off and I'm not going to be able to provide the proper patient care because I don't have the time.
I have been tempted to disappear myself when they are "working" but I can't sink that low. My first priority is to the patients.

why can't anything be done about this behavoir? Why dont they lay them off?

25(2)+2 · Oct 26, 2006

looks good on the schedule but doesn't matter whether they work or not as long as they are there. if state comes you are fully staffed. frankly i would rather be understaffed or in my case alone on the floor than have someone who is there in body only.

lisabug96 · Nov 6, 2006

I have just finished reading all this and absolutely do not doubt any of it. When I was orientating with my job, I was shocked. It was nothing like what I was taught was supposed to happen. When the "bad CNA's" figure out you are not going to do it their way, they turn on you, maybe out of fear of being found out or what ever.. and will set you up for some really bad nights. and yes ... they disappear.

One girl i work with is going to school, just like me but works a little differently than i do. she pulls double shifts on thrusday, friday and saturday nights by working 2nd and 3rd. she makes her rounds twice. yes i said twice, thats per shift. any feeders that are bed ridden dont get fed 100% because she thinks they might throw up and make a mess.. its unreal!!! i had to orientate with her on second shift of my 5th day of work. i was already assigned to another girl but this girl was complaining to the lpn that she had a hard load and needed the help more that the other girl. the lpn never looked at the assigned residents just said ok.. go with her. it was awful. i took that list and went to see one of the residents on her list.. i changed this resident and got her up from her nap, into her w/c. as we were coming down the hall, this girl starts yelling at me that i wasnt supposed to get that resident up! she just didnt want her up... she snapped the wheelchair around and said she would put her back to bed. i asked if anyone else needed changing.. she said that i was so slow that she had already seen about everyone else!!! i was only in there... maybe 5 minutes... maybe... she had 9 residents assigned to her. ..(this was about 3:30 into a 3pm to 11pm shift... i had a very long night)

lisabug96 · Nov 6, 2006

Sorry ... i forgot to mention that we are both nursing students... go figure that one.

squeakykitty · Nov 6, 2006

katherine,
thanks for the reply! yes, it's been that long - can you believe it? i guess the problem is that i'm not training anymore, so i'm just as responsible as everyone else for making sure jobs are done. it's gotten so bad that one day last weekend one of the other aides (the best one we had on our floor - learned so much with him!) and i spent 15 minutes in the parking lot venting about how we had done all of her work that day because she never stayed on the floor (i swear she made 10 trips to the giftshop that day!) and everytime she was gone her patients needed changed so we had to do it. i also know that the charge nurse we had that day (who was a floater) wrote an e-mail to our manager about all the things that b hadn't done for her patients that day, including leaving that large patient sitting in his bm for so long. she's told me outright that the only thing that really needs to be done on her shift is vitals q4 for all her patients. ]
not bathing the patient,and leaving them marinating in b.m.
wouldn't this be considered neglect, and reportable to the state if the manager won't do anything?

LanaBanana · Nov 6, 2006

I thought I would update everyone on this situation. The aide in question is transfering to another department to be a unit clerk so she will no longer be doing patient care. I'm so excited about that!

BabyRN2Be · Nov 10, 2006

I thought I would update everyone on this situation. The aide in question is transfering to another department to be a unit clerk so she will no longer be doing patient care. I'm so excited about that!

I'm so happy for you, Lana! I know that this has been a big problem for you. However, I wish that someone had the gumption to outright fire her, but that's just me. I'm soo glad that she's no longer doing patient care with the bonus that she's out of your department altogether!

If she thinks that the job of unit clerk means that she can talk on the phone all day, she's got something coming to her. On that job she can't make as many trips to the gift shop as she will be very busy. The nurses won't tolerate that for very long if they are having to their job plus hers!

I know that's been the case all this time, but I think that a nurse is going to get pretty upset having to do patient care plus answer the phones if she goes down to the coffee shop all day.

But I'm really glad it worked out for you. I know that'll be some stress off of you!! :)

suznan · Nov 10, 2006

after reading this I just had to reply. Any aide that works like should be reported whether a person feels like they are tattling or not. If you are aware of a situation like that and do nothing about it then you are just as guilty as the person doing this. This is patient abuse and neglect and can get a person in trouble with the law. As a CNA were always told that even if we did not mean to forget to put on an alarm and the patient got hurt it was still neglect and we were responsible for it.

Susan