Delegation

[penny186, ADN, BSN, CNA, RN]

Hello, I've been an RN at the LTC facility I was an aide at for 7 years prior. There is an aide who started working there in my last year as an aide. Nice girl, but possible she has some type of mental problems. She became my close friend and she has no parents, no car, no clothes etc. I helped her by giving her rides, clothes, food etc. However she is totally not receptive to the point of coming to work smelling horrendous daily (I mean smelling like cat per, BO, and nasty feet), dressing immorality and strange for work, and just doing odd things. I put that all aside and accepted that shes not receptive to help . However since I became a nurse her laziness and bad behavior with the residents has really got me aggravated, since now I'm the nurse and its my problem. She constantly doesn't adhere to the care plans, leaves beds wet, people covered in dried up feces, garbage on the floor, messy rooms, never repositions, no heel float boots, geri sleeves etc. never cleans their bottoms, gets them up in the morning looking like homeless people, and recently I noticed double briefing. I have had to follow behind her since July since nicely telling her to fix her mistakes has no effect. She was approached the other night about double briefing and she did it again last night! I work as the supervisor as well as the floor nurse and in this case I went to the supervisor who wrote her up. I have no tolerance for this type of behavior. It's not below me to fix things with the residents but she is there to provide basic care and its consistently not done every night to the point where I have to check every resident. I don't have time for that. I am there for the residents who need aides to provide basic care that they don't get! Its hard since she was my close friend but I have a job to do and double briefing is just not acceptable! I've been an aide and know what needs to be done. If they need help they can always come to me but most of the time they are playing on their phones. I'm ready to just quit since management does absolutely nothing when you come to them. I don't want to hurt her but she's got to learn

[Queen Tiye, RN]

Write her up. Our obligation is to protect our patients. What you described is neglect and it is punishable by law. She could go to jail or be sued and so can the nurses who knew about it and didn’t report. I understand that you befriended her but keeping her on is jeopardizing your license.

[caliotter3]

Deal with her behavior or it may come to deal with you. As a minimum, your copies of all write ups sent forward will show that you were consistently trying to do right by the residents. If this person needs mental health care, it is up to someone in mgmt to address that problem. Do your part.

[Thanksforthedonuts, MSN, APRN]

I understand you consider her a “friend”, but honestly, I think you just feel bad for the poor girl. I would have fired her a long time ago. You can’t fix some people, and I’ve trained enough LTC staff to see a train wreck coming. You can’t fix her and she doesn’t want to be fixed. Let her go before she gets you in serious trouble. Don’t worry, There are PLENTY of other facilities who will give her at least a short term job until they figure her out.

Sorry to be harsh but I see this on a frequent basis.

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

While you certainly can feel bad for this girl what you shouldn't do is let your personal feelings toward her impact your need to protect the residents under her care. If she is unable or just unwilling to perform the job even to minimal standards of care she shouldn't be working with vulnerable residents.

[Dani_Mila, BSN, RN]

I would educate her and write her up. She has been written up about it before. Apparently, she is not listening