CNAs and RNs

Godswill · Feb 16, 2004

is it normal to just have one cna/tech for that many ? :stone

purplemania, BSN, RN · Feb 16, 2004

Nurses are not the only people who act that way, but that is beside the point. Tell the nurse you will take care of "whatever" as soon as possible, then live up to that. If there is one who particularly pressures you, then get this person aside and explain that you have duties too and have to prioritize just like she does. If that does not help, talk to the manager. I suspect the people pressuring you are under pressure as well, but everyone's job would be easier if we worked together.

Rapheal · Feb 17, 2004

So 5 nurses with 6 patients each. 1 tech to help out. High acuity-post surgical patients with a lot to document on, a lot of assessments to monitor for changes, a lot of new orders, a lot of IV's, ect. These nurses are busy. You have 30 patients as a CNA/Tech. Your floor needs two aides. Seems like when staffing is not appropriate, everyone starts accusing everyone else of being lazy. Resist the urge to point fingers. Work on getting another CNA/Tech to split the floor. Gather the support of the nurses to help you do this. Then your life will be easier and everyone will get along better. Inadaquate staffing is the problem, and mgmt. needs to address and correct this. Until then there will be discourse among the staff, all the while mgmt. saves money and leaves all of you working your butts off and blaming each other. Don't accept this.

kypiratevoice · Feb 17, 2004

This seems to be problem everywhere, and as a nursing home administrator, I can tell you it happens in the best facilities. Stress and workload seem to be the biggest problems, but just overall courtesy and sensitivity seem to have gone out the door, and we wonder why turnover is high. Our nursing programs could do a better job of teaching nurses to be working nurses, too. I sometimes wonder where teamwork went! Don't give up. Be the best you can be for the people who count, the residents......... :rolleyes:

I want to hear this opinion.... Im on one of the busiest floors in the hospital.... a surgery floor, colonoscopy floor... you name it, i get it.... everything except renal and heart patients, all though we do get those.... recently, I've been the only CNA/Nurse Tech oh the floor with 30 patients, and 5 nurses... not including the charge nurse. You know, sometimes, not to be raging at RNs because I want to be one someday, some are just down right lazy! Why is it that some just take advantage of me and act like I should stop right where I am at, and do this for them? I was in the middle of a shower/dressing change, changing the bed, when this RN comes in there and acts like I need to pull a bed down for this new admit STAT?
I think some can act like I can split in 2. I don't understand!

Tweety, BSN, RN · Feb 17, 2004

It's a very common complaint of CNA's everywhere "Can't they see I'm busy.......can't they do it themselves......."

The ratio for the nurse there with 30 patients is 6:1. While you were in the middle of that shower, nurse has been in her/his busy world trying the manage the needs of every single on of those patients, check the labs, check new orders, on and on and on....often times we are oblivious to what our CNA's are going through and can only think of what we want. I've bumped into a CNA and asked "What were the vital signs on that new admission..." "CAN'T YOU SEE I'M BUSY! YOU SPENT 30 MINUTES IN THERE COULDN'T YOU HAVE GOTTEN THE VITAL SIGNS THEN!"....."Ummm.....sorry, I was so busy with the data base and worrying about putting in the ng tube in the next room, and getting 402 some pain medicine, then the iv needed changing in room 404, I honestly didn't realize I needed to take my own set of vital signs, but you could have asked me to and I would have been glad to....."

Bottom line is you and the nurses need more help and need to work together and communicate.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Feb 18, 2004

The nurses on my floor are very busy, I'M very busy, and we're the night shift. I lucked out that we all realize that we're not lazy and we don't bite each other's head off over anything.

A incident that got corrected REAL quick:

I went to all 7 nurses and said that i was going off the floor for my 30 minutes, and every single one said ok. Ten minutes later a nurse came 4 floors down to a break area to tell ME when i'm off the clock that her pt. is wet. I had 20 minutes left off clock, and i simply said "You checked your pt., saw she's wet, get on the elevator, leaving the REST of your pts. alone, to come down here to tell my your pt. is wet? In the time it took you to get down here to TELL me this would have been the same amount of time to change her brief!" She replies "It's your job to do that not mine". Oh no it's not, because "you're the one ultimately responsible for your pt. so even if i get in trouble for not 'drying' a pt. when i'm off the clock, YOU will be just as liable, if not in that boat by yourself".

I float as a CA on a floor of 35 pts. I now have to have an extremely good reason not to take a lunch anymore, so now by George, i take my 30 minutes.

Any nurse that barges in when i'm in the middle of helping a pt., i simply say "right now i am busy. I will be a few more minutes. I'll be out in the hall by then." Luckily that never happens.

In reality my floor needs 2 aides even on night shift, considering we've turned into a glorified nursing home lately (our joking admission criteria: You must be over 80, have both MRSA and VRE, plus CDiff, be confused, cuss loudly, swear up and down you can walk when you can't, and climbing over bedrails). But corporate is way too cheap to consider it, and if i'm REALLY lucky, i can beg for an floor-assigned orderly to help me. When there's two of us, we can just start at one end of the hall and get all pts. dried without having to say to the nurse "can you help me?".

Whew.

IOW, i feel your pain.