FED UP CNAS!!!!

Nursing Students CNA/MA

Published

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

Specializes in Geriatrics.

Ack, where did my post go?

My main complaints:

1) Low pay. I make $8.25/hour and have to take care of 14-20 residents by myself on average, including showers. They're mostly heavy care. When payday rolls around, I always ask myself why I even bother. Why don't I use my criminal justice degree I paid so much money for and make at least double my current salary? (The answer is because I'm an idiot and I love my job)

2) Too many residents on my hall and no help most days. See #1.

3) Nurses who refuse to help. Most are great but some I want to strangle. One I refuse to work with at all.

4) Lazy coworkers who constantly ask for my help but disappear when I need help. Or refuse to do their jobs at all and I get stuck with their residents along with my own.

5) Shower aides who only shower the residents who are ambulatory and basically only need supervision. Why can't they take on some of the harder showers? It's not like they do anything else all day.

6) Evening shift. I work day shift and it's hard, much harder than the other shifts. We have to get almost everyone up in the morning, feed breakfast, give showers, lay people down, get them back up for lunch, lay them down after lunch. Evening shift comes strutting in and treats us like dogs, saying we're lazy and trying to make us answer their call lights that come on while we're doing our charting after our shift is officially over. They don't want to work. They don't do most of their showers so we get stuck with them. I worked that shift for 8 months and I know for a fact it's easier than days. They only have 1 meal, then they put everybody to bed and sit around at the desk. My evening shift nurse was really upset when I left to go to days because I actually did all my showers and rounds like I was supposed to. I don't know why they're getting away with not doing what they're supposed to--maybe because the bosses aren't around? Some of them have been whining about how unfair it is that they can't go to days. Um hello?! Stop acting like it's such a hardship to come in and actually work and maybe they'd let you! Everyone on evenings who actually works eventually goes to days when an opening comes up. If they're not letting you go to days and we have openings, maybe you should take a good hard look at your performance.

7) People who call in sick when they're really hung over. If you can't handle your alcohol well enough to work in the morning, take the hint and quit drinking. I understand calling out for actual illness because I have some health issues and have to call out a couple of times/month. I always bring in a doctor's note. I have migraines and can't take any of the preventative medicines so if I wake up with one, I have my husband call in to work for me. Then I take my meds, go to sleep for a couple of hours, and go to work. My bosses are very understanding about this.

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Specializes in Med-Surg/urology.

I'm so glad I saw this thread!! I have some stuff I wanted to vent lol.

I work @ an ALF for people with dementia & its pretty small compared to other ALFs or LTCs (just 57 residents currently). The place is divided up into 4 parts called "houses" and there's about 13-15 people in each house. Two caregivers are supposed to be in each house, but that doesn't always happen because either someone calls out or the other person is a med tech & has to pass meds somewhere else in the building :( I wouldn't mind being alone in the house but the thing is alot of the people there are total care, and really shouldnt be there..did I also mention we have the highest number of falls in our company district? Also we always short-staffed on my shift (3-11) & for that reason, meds are being given out late because we don't have enough med. techs! ::sigh:: And I'm tired of trying to find someone to assist me with a resident..we're "supposed" to carry walkie-talkies with us but no1 uses them. It makes things really difficult when you're trying to help a resident but you have to leave their room in order to find someone. And finally, I'm tired of people lying in the communication logs. Plenty of times we come on shift & ask how things have been and the day shift will say "fine, not much is happening here, etc". But come to find out, people have fallen or gotten bruises during their shift! And theres no mention of it in the communication log. Then when we ask day shift why there was no mention of it in the log, they say "oh its in there" and then GO BACK and add it in. Um, it doesn't help me now. I'm already aware that they've had a fall !

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Specializes in Geriatrics.

This is the major one:

Well this past week resulted in me contacting my charge nurse, boss and they contacted family members and they're contacting the state because of 2 CNAs (I'll refer to them as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb) that have been negligent and verbally abusive. I got really tired of their $h!t. We work night shift and they wait until about 4 am til they change or turn any of their residents. God forbid they have a call light, they'll cuss until they're blue in the face, talk to the resident like they're bothering them and sit at the station all night wasting all their energy saying the most, crude, vulgar innapropriate things about these people.

I asked Tweedle Dee to help me change/turn one of my residents which we had to do 4 times that night. Every she helped me, she got a little more impatient, but I needed the help. This resident is very heavy. The last time I changed her before shift was over, Tweedle Dumb came in to "help"/pass time/talk crap. They laughed at this poor woman and called her a "fat ass" and said "she needs to lose this flab so we can put this f%$#ing diaper on". I told them that I had it from there, no thank you and told the charge nurse. I considered these girls my friends up until they showed their true colors.

Last night was my day off and work called to ask if I could come in for night shift because we had a couple of call offs. I didn't get the call because I was out of town and my phone was off while I was driving. One of the call offs was Tweedle Dee. Tweedle Dumb calls me after the charge nurse attempted to get a hold of me and leaves me a message to call her back. I got the message later that night and called her back. She got an attitude with me and said "We need you to come into work, we're short." I said sorry but I'm out of town and I'm staying here til tomorrow morning." She goes on to say "Well I'm going to have 6 more residents than usual and you never come in when we're short..." I got really irritated and stopped her midsentence with this: "Wait wait wait.... First of all tell your sidekick to come to work when she's supposed to and second of all what's the worst that you'll have to do tonight, work? Are you afraid that you actually have to take care of those residents or else everyone will catch on to your $h!t?"

She ended that conversation with an oh-so-classy F-Bomb and I had to just shake my head. These chicks sit at the station and say they're bored. They prank call ex boyfriends and sometimes when I come back to the station, I see call lights going off and they're sitting there complaining about what they have to do for that resident.

Without these residents, we wouldn't have jobs. We are so very fortunate to be employed. If they don't like their jobs so much, move along

b!%ch3$!! There's other people waiting in line for a job who will probably do a whole lot more work than they ever do in an entire work week.

Other things that have me fed up are:

LVNs that act like they can't touch a resident and are too high above the aids to do anything the aides have to do; vitals, give a resident a sip of water when they ask for it, help aides pull up a resident, etc. You know what I mean I'm sure all of you aides have dealt with this! Grrr....

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Specializes in Med-Surg/urology.
This is the major one:

Other things that have me fed up are:

LVNs that act like they can't touch a resident and are too high above the aids to do anything the aides have to do; vitals, give a resident a sip of water when they ask for it, help aides pull up a resident, etc. You know what I mean I'm sure all of you aides have dealt with this! Grrr....

Omg we have two LPNs at my job that act just like this!! One of them is semi tolerable, but the other acts like he's soo much better than all of us! On evenings when he is supposed to be passing meds, they're always passed out late. Last week he was supposed to be giving the 4:00pm meds, he did 3 residents and then disappeared. We're wondering "Hey where is he?" We call around to other parts of the building and we find out that's he's left early because he had "prior committments". So because of that our only med. tech on duty had to hurry up giving meds to the other residents in the building, and then come over to finish giving meds to my residents. Thank God one of the better LPNs stopped by to see if we needed any help, so the med. tech didn't have to do all the 8:00pm meds by herself. And don't let me get started on how he barks out orders like we're his slaves or something. I'm trying to help other residents & he expects me to drop everything to do something for him! Ughhhhhhhhhhh:banghead::banghead:

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Specializes in Geriatrics.

Well this past week resulted in me contacting my charge nurse, boss and they contacted family members and they're contacting the state because of 2 CNAs (I'll refer to them as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb) that have been negligent and verbally abusive. I got really tired of their $h!t.

BTDT with an Aide I worked with on evening shift. Guess what happened to her? Absolutely nothing! She still works there and people act like she's freaking Jesus! I can't stand her. She's verbally and occasionally physically abusive to the residents, she's a **** to day shift when she takes over, and she's lazy as all get out. Why do these people get away with crap like this?

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Specializes in GYN/GON/Med-Surg/Oncology/Tele.

Wowzer...reading some of these posts and sitting through the horror stories told by classmates in my NAII class. I am truly blessed to be working on my unit.

Granted I have my moments when I really want to tell the Nurses I work with a piece of my mind but dang...some of you have been through some pretty rough you know what!

I work in a hospital on a unit that can hold 24 patients. I'd say about 95% of the time there are two NA's on each shift. Maybe about 75% of the time we have less than 18 patients on our unit. So you're looking at about an average of maybe 9 pt's per NA.

On my unit, us NA's basically do everything for our patients except turn off beeping IV pumps, administer meds, and start IV's.

We check vitals every 4 hours, blood sugars however they're ordered to be checked. It's somewhat of a med/surg floor so we check post op pt's vitals say every 15 mins for a hour, then every 30 minutes for a hour and then every 4 hours. Everytime a pt calls out for help to void, we're paged regardless of whether or not we were paged just a minute ago to help another pt. Whenever a pt has "an accident" when we ask their nurse for help, we're told to ask the other NA for help instead. I've had nurses tell me they couldn't help because their back hurts...HELLO...I'm cleaning your pt's up all night...wouldn't my back hurt worse?

Basically the things that upset me most are nurses who aren't doing a thing seeing that us NA's are busy and whenever a pt calls out for something as simple as a drink of water, they page us to go and get it for them. Or the nurse sitting at the nurse's station after coming out of a patient's room, wait for you to come out of another's patient's room then ask you to take something to the patient who asked them to bring them something right before they left out of their room.

I get tired of working hard and having my patient's mistake me for their nurse who will have maybe 3-5 pt's at a time while I could have up to 12 patient's or maybe even 24 patients by myself all because they've seen me more throughout the whole shift. While their nurse gets to sit back and plan cruises or call their boyfriends, or chat away on facebook or myspace!

Now there are lazy NA's as well. There is a constant battle between day shift and night shift nurses and NA's and how they complain about us not doing this or not doing that when everyday, I'm coming in cleaning up the mess they left us. There has been plenty of times when a patient would arrive on the floor maybe 4 hours before the start of my shift and not even have vitals done. Then when I get report and have printed off my assignment, and get to a certain patient they tell me oh...I didn't even know we had a pt in so and so room. To those NA's...maybe if you weren't so busy leaving while on the clock to pay your bills or go sleep with your man or to take a smoke break...you'd know you had a pt in so and so room!

So yeah I get p'ed off...but thankfully it's ONLY a 12 hr shift 3 days a week and I get to choose my 3 days :-) I may revise my post after tomorrow...we have 21 patients and I'm currently the only NA scheduled :'(

Good luck everyone and if you someday decide to be nurses, consider what you're going through a learning experience and a model NOT to follow!

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Some of these stories are horrible! I really sympathize with some of you!

Though, I have never had any severe problems where I work, it can get pretty overwhelming sometimes. I work in a LTC facility and have been a CNA there for about a year and a half. The biggest problem that I encounter is being understaffed. We have 3 wings, one with 22 residents, one with 26 residents, and one with 28 residents. The goal is to have 3 aides working on each unit every night. But when someone calls off (which seems to be ALL THE TIME) or we just arent fully staffed for whatever reason, the first aide they pull to go to another unit is one from the 26 resident wing, which just so happens to be the one i work on. Now common sense tells me that you would pull someone from the 22 resident wing, especially because its a skilled unit and most of the residents are independent anyways... but my supervisor just doesnt see it that way. ive asked her before how come my unit always gets stuck working with 2 aides and the other unit always gets 3.. and her response was "we all talked about it and just thought it was easier for them to be fully staffed and pick up one of your units rooms". It just doesnt makes sense to me. It's ridiculous because it happens all the time and though I'm able to deal with taking on 13 residents... my back sure doesn't like it! Even more so than working short.. Ive actually had the nurse working the 22 resident unit come up to me (when my unit was short) and ask to me to assist one of her residents. All I could think was... you have 3 aides with 7 residents each, and you are asking me, who has 13 of my own residents to take care of to help out one of your residents? Don't get me wrong, I gladly help any of the residents in my facility with no hesitation, just the fact that she had the guts to actually ask me that really got on my nerves.

So besides being shortstaffed, I really can't complain. We do have this one nurse (who unfortunately is the full time nurse on my unit) that is constantly concerned about bowel movements. Not that it's not an important thing to worry about, but whenever I tell her that a resident is really anxious or something along those lines, the first thing she asks me is if they had a BM recently, to which I answer yes, and she then procedes to think that they are still constipated instead of giving them something to calm them down, which just makes my job harder. She also likes to give suppositories to residents that don't need them. Why? I have no idea. Most of the time I just laugh about it, but sometimes she goes over the top.

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BTDT with an Aide I worked with on evening shift. Guess what happened to her? Absolutely nothing! She still works there and people act like she's freaking Jesus! I can't stand her. She's verbally and occasionally physically abusive to the residents, she's a **** to day shift when she takes over, and she's lazy as all get out. Why do these people get away with crap like this?

Because nobody is big enough to go turn them in to the state if they're verbally and physically abusive to the resident. You turn in a CNA and the state will be there bright and early in the morning. I encourage you to do so. That will fix them! Good Luck

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So besides being shortstaffed, I really can't complain. We do have this one nurse (who unfortunately is the full time nurse on my unit) that is constantly concerned about bowel movements. Not that it's not an important thing to worry about, but whenever I tell her that a resident is really anxious or something along those lines, the first thing she asks me is if they had a BM recently, to which I answer yes, and she then procedes to think that they are still constipated instead of giving them something to calm them down, which just makes my job harder. She also likes to give suppositories to residents that don't need them. Why? I have no idea. Most of the time I just laugh about it, but sometimes she goes over the top.

Sometimes when a patient is anxious it's because they're in pain, doesn't necessairly mean they need to have a bowel movement. LOL, I love the giving suppositories to those who don't need them. I'm sorry it just sounds so funny the way it was worded, because I've seen a nurse who gave a pain medication for someone who needed a suppository instead. The poop was there, it just needed help coming out. She wasn't in pain.

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Specializes in LTC.

uggh, a lot of old people are completely obsessed with their bowels... way to feed into that! lol.

I know what you mean about people getting pulled from your hall. There's one hall where I work that's full of incompetent dumbass aides who only work that hall. Then when someone calls out a CNA gets pulled from another hall, because they can't get their work done otherwise. Yet somehow these CNAs always seem to have something to say about the other halls, which they have never worked! It's like please shut up until you know what you're talking about... which is never going to happen because they don't rotate slow, stupid CNAs.

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.

Hoo boy. I don't miss my LTC CNA days one bit. I remember one aide who trained me, warned me about "Mr H.". "Watch out, he hits!" she had told me.

It didn't take long to see why. She would walk into his room, flip on the bright lights and announce loudly that she was going to change his "diaper", then proceed to toss him around like a rag doll.

Another resident was dying of brain cancer. Every night, she thought her husband was coming in the morning to pick her up and take her on a car trip to see her relatives. I started to notice a pattern, where every time I went into that resident's room after that same CNA had been in there, the resident was agitated, swearing a blue streak. The CNA made no secret that she "hated that woman" because the resident reminded her of her own grandmother, who she despised.

Any time I needed help, the other CNA was always outside on a smoke break.

I did my best to provide even just adequate care for 20 residents with no help, but it just wasn't humanly possible.

It always ticked me off to think that a person could make more delivering pizza than caring for the frail and vulnerable.

You CNAs that go to work day after day and give your best to these people that you are entrusted to care for have my deepest respect.

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Because nobody is big enough to go turn them in to the state if they're verbally and physically abusive to the resident. You turn in a CNA and the state will be there bright and early in the morning. I encourage you to do so. That will fix them! Good Luck

In my honest opinion, if a person knows that there is abuse going on and does not report it, they are just as responsible. What if that was your grandmother or grandfather?

My grandmother died in our home (thankfully we had the means to take care of her) and she was dead-set AGAINST going to a nursing home because when she was in her 20's she worked in one and saw how the patients were treated.

This is very sad, and SHAME on those who have an apathetic attitude towards the way other professionals treat your residents.

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