FED UP CNAS!!!!

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ANYBODY THATS A CNA PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY YOUR SO FED UP!!!!:down: BECAUSE I AM!!

I am sick and tired of the housekeepers who will walk by a resident and ask them if they need to use the bathroom. W.t.f.? Why bother the resident especially if they DO NOT know whether or not they have just been toileted. Grrrrr! *I want to knock someone out*

I finally had it with one housekeeper and told her to stop asking the resident because she does not know who is on a bladder retraining program or who I may have just taken.

I can handle MY JOB just fine, thanks. :bugeyes::rolleyes:

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Day shift nurses who ask me to do a shower for the night shift because night shift has 3....excuse me while I pretend to conjure up some pity. As if I do not have enough to do and that extra shower will set me back. This has been asked when I myself have 3 showers to do. How about I leave 1 of my showers for the night shift, yes?

Yeah, I had an awesome-holish day. :argue::flamesonb

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Specializes in PACU, LTC, Med-Surg, Telemetry, Psych.
Wow. I'm in CNA class right now and reading these stories has me baffled....to say the least! I do question facilities that don't have the supplies needed to care for the residents....can that not be reported? Those residents have the right to quality of care and if they are laying around in dirty briefs because you have a limit to how many can be used in one day, that is insane! As for being the "janitor"?? Is this normal for the CNA duties? I know a CNA changes the bedding and keeps the room cleaned up...among MANY other tasks, but do they mop floors as well? You would think our main focus would be in "caring for the patients personal needs" and ADL's. Is there any facility that is more focused on patient care and less on janitorial duties than the other? Thanks for all the stories and for any advice!

The mop is locked up. You are not going to touch a mop most places. But, if there is blood, vomit, pee, or poop on the floor you will be taking a towel (or anything else you can find in places with bad supplies) to get that stuff up. Janitorial is not going to touch it!

I did work on one geri psych unit that made you mop hallways in addition to clean offices and watch old folks freaking out. But, the place had revolving door staff because of too many duties and insane management.

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I have to let about a big GGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR to all of the people that want me to force feed residents, especially diabetics.

I will not force feed anyone.

When I am in a nursing home and stop eating, I hope to high heavens that my wishes are respected. Anyone who shoves puree peas in my mouth will soon be wearing them.

If they are so worried about the BS being low then THEY can force feed the resident; go get some glucagon, orange juice, or glucose gel; or call the physician and get permission to hold that dose of insulin.

Don't blame me and get angry when people refuse to eat. It's NOT my fault.

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I have to let about a big GGGGGGGGRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR to all of the people that want me to force feed residents, especially diabetics.

I will not force feed anyone.

When I am in a nursing home and stop eating, I hope to high heavens that my wishes are respected. Anyone who shoves puree peas in my mouth will soon be wearing them.

If they are so worried about the BS being low then THEY can force feed the resident; go get some glucagon, orange juice, or glucose gel; or call the physician and get permission to hold that dose of insulin.

Don't blame me and get angry when people refuse to eat. It's NOT my fault.

Do we work at the same place? When I resident tells me they are done. I put the fork down and walk away. It is BS how the meals are so regimented.

Anyone who shoves food in my mouth with be vomited on. :devil: ;) :smokin: :mad: :clown:

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Do we work at the same place? When I resident tells me they are done. I put the fork down and walk away. It is BS how the meals are so regimented.

Anyone who shoves food in my mouth with be vomited on. :devil: ;) :smokin: :mad: :clown:

I do understand that the nurses can't just decide to hold insulin because a resident isn't eating lately. Totally get it.

But when the resident has refused to eat dinner for the past 6 MONTHS, yet the nurse is still giving them 15 units of insulin before dinner despite having a BS of

I'm tired of getting yelled at and blamed for people bottoming out their BS after dinner (OK now that I typed that sentence out it sounds like I'm talking about pooping instead of having a low blood sugar).

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Specializes in LTC.

Oh no, you're never supposed to force them... just get them to eat it. If that means sitting with them for 3 hours, giving them every pureed food under the sun, and standing on your head, then so be it. Just don't "force" them because that's abuse.

Same goes for when someone keeps coughing up their food. Don't keep feeding them... but their intake for the day better not be low.

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Wow, it's been ages since I've been here! I'm working at a different facility now, and while I love it, I have some gripes.

First of all, I work at a home for severely developmentally disabled children (though many are adults now). These residents are ALL total care. Of the 80 residents, only five can stand or walk and the rest have to be lifted. We have 12 - 15 residents per CNA when we are FULLY STAFFED. When we're short, we have anywhere from 18 - 24. This is on both 1st and 2nd shifts. A normal day, we have 4-6 showers to give as well as full bed baths for all of the other residents who don't get showers on our shift. Though many of the kids on my wing are tube fed, most of the nurses will not let you start laying them down before the other residents eat dinner. So, somehow I'm supposed to be able to wash, change, and put 12-15 kids to bed between the hours of 7 and 9.

I mentioned that 75 of these kids are to be lifted. Anyone over 50 pounds is supposed to be a hoyer lift (and we only have about 5 who are under 50 pounds). Each of the other kids are supposed to have a lift sling underneath them in their chairs. However, between the sad state of the laundry department and the aides with too many residents to get up for workshop in the mornings, it's not uncommon for most of them to be without lift slings. This means manually lifting them - and some of them weigh upwards of 200 pounds and cannot bear any weight.

Speaking of the sad state of laundry, it's not uncommon for our shift to come in and have NO TOWELS OR WASHCLOTHS for several hours. How exactly am I supposed to do five showers with no linens? Flat sheets are like gold, and are constantly being scavenged for on other halls.

We're no longer allowed to use bed pads/incontinence pads (which I know is widespread), but these kids tend to be much heavier wetters than the elderly in general, and most nights you'll have several complete bed changes to do...but good luck finding the linens to do them. Some of the kids can soak through a brief in one go.

Ugh. I really do love my job, and after working here I never want to go back to a regular nursing home again...but simple things like more linens and better staffing would make it so much better. But, I guess that's the case everywhere, isn't it?

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I'm so sick of the "helpless nurse syndrome." Not all nurses have it, but the ones that do have it usually have a severe case of it. Tonight a nurse actually took a resident's blood glucose, saw that it was low, freaked, ran RIGHT PAST the drink cart outside the resident's room (which had orange on top, with the lid even off and some plastic cups right next to it!!), came and found me, asked me to pour a glass of orange juice for this resident STAT.

I"m surprised the nurse actually took a blood sugar. But I've experienced this many times from certain nurses and I try to avoid working with them. The best kind of nursing assisant to work with those types of nurses are the slackers because the nurse will have to actually put in the effort to get the work done.

I know the whole spiel about how "I [the nurse] can help you with your stuff but you can't help me with my stuff so I need to get my stuff done first." Yeah, I know. What makes me mad is that they say that, but then they are the ones that have already taken 4 breaks @ 15 minutes each, yet I've been here the same amount of time and gotten NO BREAKS AT ALL.

I agree with this. It's funny how they always have time to have a dozen cigarette breaks throughout the shift. Any nurse who says this an instant red flag.

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^Yup. I understand that a nurse has to do a lot of things a CNA can't, but I get annoyed sometimes.

I used to work with a nurse that would call you to take someone's vitals before she gave a med. All the stuff would be right there and she would stand there doing nothing while you got them. Not crushing the meds, signing the MAR, or anything. Just standing there with her arms crossed. What a waste of time.

I was doing vitals one day and the machine said a resident's BP was sky-high. Thinking the machine was just wonky, I showed this same nurse the reading and asked to borrow a manual cuff. I got the same reading. She scoffed and said, "there's no way" and followed me back to the resident's room to take her BP a 3rd time. She stood there and watched me take the blood pressure and when I said it was still the same she finally took it herself. I was like what the frig? And yes, she got the same reading that the machine and myself (x2) got. And then another time I found a resident was having stroke symptoms. She stood there while I took the BP, which was difficult because the resident was jiggling her arm and I couldn't hear anything. And the stethoscope was one of those awful heavy ones with huge bell. Instead of holding her arm still for me she stood there while i took the BP twice and then she got impatient and pretty much guessed at what it was.

And then another time a resident asked her for a blanket which was folded up at the end of her bed. She told this person to put the call light on because that was an aide's job. Again, what the frig?

I call this abuse because that's exactly what it is. I believe if something needs to be done, the person who notices it first or considers it to be a high priority should be the first one to act. It's one thing to ask someone for help if you're busy, but it's another to be available but decide not to do something because you believe it's not your job when it is. This is how time is wasted. I remember when I first became a member here there was a CNA vs. RN thread and I remember several responses from RNs who stated they were professionals who want to be taken seriously by physicians and that putting pts off/on bed pans, covering pts up with blankets, and filling up water pitchers impedes that. Or else you wouldn't here statements like "I don't get paid $60 an hour to clean poop" or "That's the nursing assistants job." I even hear from graduate nurses they will not clean up poop because they didn't go to school for X years to do that.

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Me: Hey, Nurse, Patient X has a large bruise on his back.

Nurse: (seeming stressed and preoccupied, obiviously hasn't listen to a word I've said all shift, yells at me) Okay, okay, okay, Shaylamn, write it in the book, I am busy right now, blah blah blah.

(two days later in report)

Supervisor: PATIENT X HAS A LARGE BRUISE!!! Why didn't anyone report it or chart it!!!

x this scenario about biweekly

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Specializes in ltc, med/surg.

I used to lose sleep every night thinking about the nurse who treated me like a stupid maidservant or the fellow CNA who hangs outside the DON office doing nothing but reporting her hard-working co-workers. I don't think a day goes by without getting some sort of crap from someone. But now- as long as I know that I'm doing my job well and working as hard as I can, I don't care what people say. I think all good aides will enjoy their jobs more if they just go to work and minded their own business.

Focus on the patients. Don't gossip with co-workers. When you talk to the nurse- ONLY talk about patient care with them, even when the nurse is steering the conversation in another direction (they'll somehow use it against you). Also- never be shy to ask the NURSE to help you with a transfer, since it is their job too.

I say make your own beds and don't depend on housekeeping. The patients and their families will remember you as the expert bed-maker.

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