do you feel like the CNA's run the floor?

tiffanycmt · Mar 9, 2006

DINGDINGDINGDING!!!! I think we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen!
And not changing beds everyday? Ick. Maybe you should get your facility to have some nursing students in for clinicals. Seems like that's all we did for the first semester. Learning to change an occupied bed.

I'm NOT saying you guys aren't right but as i've said before i've worked in four different ltc facilitys and i did cna classes in Nebraska then moved to missouri and re did them here and i have never been told to change beds everday we do them on there weekly shower days and then they get santized by housekeeping. now the facility i'm at now they get showers twice a week but there bed only gets stripped once therefor unless its soiled only gets changed once. Is this a state reg?? I do agree it would be nice to change there beds every day but i work in a 120 bed facility and we wouldn't even have enough linens to be able to do that... I think it is easy to get a bad attitude and get burnt out working as a cna/aide although its not right and the res. suffer in the end it does happen. underpaid and overworked alot of the times....Tiffany

chadash · Mar 9, 2006

I am a new nurse of about 2 years and work on an acute med-surg geriatric floor. It is an 18 bed unit and we work with 3 RN's and 2 CNA's. THough this ratio seems fair, myself and the other nurses constantly feel like we are doing everyones work. When we do ask for extra help from the aides, it is usually accompanied by an attitude or a smart remark. The nurses on my floor feel as though it is unfair that we have to sacrifice our nursing time with our patients to do aide work. (We do perform these duties anyway, but can not do both jobs for the whole shift). The aides seem to do oly the minimum to get by per their job description. Has anyone else encountered this issue?:angryfire
PS: When this issue was brought to attention to administration, we were told that they cant change anybodys personalities and do the best we can.:uhoh21:

geezlouise guys! I can't get a hospital job! I am a NA who would be embarressed if someone else had to do my job.....maybe you need to check with HR and find out how in the heck they decide on hiring NAs who dont give a hoot.

Keely-FutureRN · Mar 9, 2006

I've always felt that good aides can makea floor run smoothly or break a floor. In fact, I felt more valuable when I was an aide...lol. The problem is that there usually just aren't enough aides on a floor. If one aide is taking vitals on 40 patients and then charting them...and trying to get them done before breakfast trays are there...it's almost impossible to get help from the aide. He/she is also giving out bedpans and running to tell nurses that a patient needs a pain med and other things! In the mean time...the nurses are asking for help pulling pts up so they can take their meds. I usually did my own vitals, but many of the nurses refused. Yes, teamwork is needed....but there have to be enough team members!

Amen! :bow: I absolutely HATE it when I have to work with other staff (both aides or nurses) who don't pull their fair share of the load.

I also want to mention that I am the only aide on my SDS/PACU floor and especially in SDS, it gets crazy! Nurses are coming at me from all directions and sometimes I feel bad because I CAN'T get to everything ( go pull room 5's iv, 4 gurney's need to be cleaned, room 6 had an accident, room 8 wants me to order them a tray, room 12 wants to know how much longer until they go back to the or, room 10 needs vitals, room 7 needs to be wheeled downstairs, I need to draw up some more lidocaine, the fifth floor is calling and wants me to bring up the patients belongings, GI just called and they're bringing over another pt...) because there is too much to do!!! (Not that it's hard, just all at once it's overwhelming...) Sometimes it's just that we are understaffed, the or is running behind so pts. come out at the end all at once ( :uhoh3: ), etc. There needs to be a better staffing ratio (as well as a kick in the rear for lazy aides/nurses) because even with everyone working their hardest, we can be run ragged.

I also have a problem with nurses helping (just sometimes;) ) because if they help me too much I feel bad because I am thinking that they don't think I'm competent enough to care for the pt. and work with them. TEAMWORK is the answer as well as appropriate staffing! :nurse:

Keely

smk1, LPN · Mar 9, 2006

omg.....how friggin' rude is that????
i'm surprised she lasted as long as 6 days.
that nurse should have been written up the very first time she said that.
and there's nothing that states that nsg assts can't write up nurses.
leslie

I didn't have a problem with the term "Aide" when i was one, but there were two nurses who made the word sound like you were the lowest form of dirt. The term itself never bugged me, but the way that some people with just a tiny bit of power liked to use it did. I think i see what our poster from New Orleans is talking about. There are some places where completely unrealistic expectations are put onto the staff. I remember seeing the "tours" given to family members and potential new residents at an ALF that i worked at. You would not believe the promises that the director (not nursing) was making to these folks! :uhoh21: :angryfire. I don't know one CNA who would have had the time to endulge in giving back rubs and helping to hang pictures and gong out and cuting roses for their vases and other "pie in the sky" type of stuff that they were being told. When management chooses to run a skeleton crew at practically all times, then yeah, only the minimum is going to get done. "Needs" are met, but there is no time to take care of "wants", and that isn't something that a good CNA needs to beat themself up over. They did what they could, and really killing yourself and driving yourself crazy over a barely above minimum wage job is pointless. Having an attitude never helps a situation, but being assertive when need be and sticking up for yourself does.

chadash · Mar 9, 2006

:biggringi

I don't know one CNA who would have had the time to endulge in giving back rubs and helping to hang pictures and gong out and cuting roses for their vases and other "pie in the sky" type of stuff that they were being told. When management chooses to run a skeleton crew at practically all times, then yeah, only the minimum is going to get done. "Needs" are met, but there is no time to take care of "wants", and that isn't something that a good CNA needs to beat themself up over. They did what they could, and really killing yourself and driving yourself crazy over a barely above minimum wage job is pointless. Having an attitude never helps a situation, but being assertive when need be and sticking up for yourself does.

If you wanted to do the extras, you had to skip breaks and lunch.....which you would get heck for, so you had to be very stealthy.

LTCs are notoriously understaffed, and the patients feel it.

chadash · Mar 10, 2006

Seriously though, do you think CNAs are stupid?

DutchgirlRN, ASN, RN · Mar 10, 2006

Seriously though, do you think CNAs are stupid?

If any nurse thinks CNT's are stupid they should be made to work as a CNT for a month. I've never been a CNT but I see enough to know they work hard, have alot of compassion, well-liked by the patients, especially the elderly and it's a shame that some of them do not have the option to go to school because they would be awesome nurses.

No flaming here please: One final thought: I'm not talking about those aides who are pulled off the streets by our fine LTC facilities and said ok you're a nurses aide now take care of these 20 patients today. :angryfire This should so be against the law. Our poor elderly being used and abused by the system that only looks out for their own pockets. The bottom line is money. I have met several good aides in LTC facilities but they are certainly few and far between.

In Holland in order to work as an nurses aide in a LTC they have to go to school for a full year! Also nurses who do private duty have to go to school for an additional year to be certified to do private duty. The elderly care there is wonderful. I live here, I'm proud to be an American but if I ever get to the stage in my life where I have to go to a LTC, please go ahead and dig a hole and throw me in. I'd rather go to my reward!

postmortRNhere · Mar 10, 2006

Amen to that!!!:yelclap:

Mirai Kangofu · Mar 10, 2006

Yeah, I'd also rather commit suicidal euthenasia than get put into a nursing home. In fact, one day, I called up my dad and told him that I'd rather shoot him and mom than put them in nuring homes. This sparked one of the deepest conversations that we've had. He emailed me the story of a homesteader named Scott Nearing, whose life and death inspires my father and now me.

Doctors practice medicine. Scott and I intended to write a book together, We Practice Health, which never eventuated, though we wrote much on the subject in various chapters of our homesteading books Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life. We rarely if ever used doctors, pills, or hospitals. Yet Scott lived to a hale and hearty 100 and died when he decided to - by fasting for a month and a half at the very end.
He had always been physically active, in the woods, in the garden, in building construction. He was also active mentally, having written 40 or more books from his 20's to his 90's, including an autobiography, The Making of a Radical.
"Work," said Scott, "helps prevent one from getting old. My work is my life. I cannot think of one without the other. The man who works and is never bored, is never old. A person is not old until regrets take the place of hopes and plans. Work and interest in worthwhile things are the best remedy for aging." Still, he was facing the end and knew it.
Interviewed in 1981 he said "I look forward to the possibility of living until I'm 99." His blue eyes twinkled. "It is a precarious outlook, I assure you. With age, your facility of expression and perception diminishes. I have almost nothing left but time. But if I can be of service, I would like to go on living." Walt Whitman, at a far earlier age (70) said, "The old ship is not in a state to make many voyages, but the flag is still on the mast and I am still at the wheel."
Most people begin to get old in their 60's. Scott only began to be old in his 90's. Up to then if anyone called him old I was outraged, because he neither looked nor felt old. Sure, he had plenty of wrinkles. They came in his 50's from a lot of hard work in the sun. But failing and getting feeble? No.
He did more than his share of mental and physical work up to his last years. At 98 he said "Well, at least I can still split and carry in the wood." And when he was close to the end, lying in our living room, his one regret at leaving this Earth plane was on watching me lug in the wood for our kitchen stove. "I wish I could help with that," he said. He was a help unto the end.
A month or two before he died he was sitting at table with us at a meal. Watching us eat he said, "I think I won't eat anymore." "Alright," said I. "I understand. I think I would do that too. Animals know when to stop. They go off in a corner and leave off food."
So I put Scott on juices: carrot juice, apple juice, banana juice, pineapple, grape - any kind. I kept him full of liquids as often as he was thirsty. He got weaker, of course, and he was as gaunt and thin as Gandhi.
Came a day he said, "I think I'll go on water. Nothing more." From then on, for about ten days, he only had water. He was bed-ridden and had little strength but spoke with me daily. In the morning of August 24, 1983, two weeks after his 100th birthday, when it seemed he was slipping away, I sat beside him on his bed.
We were quiet together; no interruptions, no doctors or hospitals. I said "It's alright, Scott. Go right along. You've lived a good life and are finished with things here. Go on and up - up into the light. We love you and let you go. It's alright."
In a soft voice, with no quiver or pain or disturbance he said "All...right," and breathed slower and slower and slower till there was no movement anymore and he was gone out of his body as easily as a leaf drops from the tree in autumn, slowly twisting and falling to the ground.
So he returned to his Maker after a long life, well-lived and devoted to the general welfare. He was principled and dedicated all through. He lived at peace with himself and the world because he was in tune: he practiced what he preached. He lived his beliefs. He could die with a good conscience.
As to myself and my old age: I try to follow in his footsteps. It is not so easy homesteading alone, but I carry on. A few more years and I also will experience the great Transition. May I live halfway as good a life and die as good a death.

Sorry that this is off-topic, but I dread the thought of entering an LTC. Then again, I once read something that went something like this: Remember how until the 60's women went to cigar-chomping male obstetricians who strapped them down flat on their backs with leather restraints, knocked them out with drugs, and yanked the baby out with forceps? Times have changed, and so will nursing homes. As the baby boomers get older, changes will be made as more people are made aware of their future options. I hope that changes are made, and that standards are raised in employing people.

nurse_clown · Mar 10, 2006

seriously though, do you think cnas are stupid?

that would be making a generalize comment about all cna's and that wouldn't be nice or fair. like rn's and rpn's or bscn's, some are stupid and some aren't. the psw's i work with are very smart and are very good at time management. i am not. i often rely on them to help me manage my time to get my tasks done. am i stupid? i certainly hope not.

i think the reason why i don't get too much grief from the psw's is because it's a "give and take" type of professional relationship. i don't mind if they make jokes about me getting distracted and walking away from report. like i don't cause them too much grief about procedures and "who does what." in the end we all have to get the job done. if that means i have to run to get my med pass done to so i can help get a couple residents up for breakfast and have to stay an extra ten minutes, i don't mind.

but no, i don't think anyone's stupid. and to be honest, in my family, i'm the "family idiot". my dad's a medical professor. my mom was a professor of art and my sister was in the "gifted classes". me? i was considered "pretty slow" by my parents and sister so, i'm pretty sensitive about that word "stupid". i'd never consider anyone stupid or make them feel like it because i know what it feels like to feel pretty stupid.

wouldn't it be nice if everyone could get paid the same and do the jobs that are their strengths because that's what they are need for? i mean, a ceo of a hospital is just as important as the security guard that keeps the hospital staff and patients safe. an rn couldn't do her job if she didn't have help from the psw or lpn.

DutchgirlRN, ASN, RN · Mar 10, 2006

Yeah, I'd also rather commit suicidal euthenasia than get put into a nursing home. In fact, one day, I called up my dad and told him that I'd rather shoot him and mom than put them in nuring homes. Sorry that this is off-topic, but I dread the thought of entering an LTC. Then again, I once read something that went something like this: Remember how until the 60's women went to cigar-chomping male obstetricians who strapped them down flat on their backs with leather restraints, knocked them out with drugs, and yanked the baby out with forceps? Times have changed, and so will nursing homes. As the baby boomers get older, changes will be made as more people are made aware of their future options. I hope that changes are made, and that standards are raised in employing people.

:yeahthat: My parents have both made me promise to let them go with dignity if they get to the point that they cannot eat. I would never put one of them in a LTC. You can say never is a long time but I know for a fact that I would stay home and take care of them, whatever it took. If they are terminal I would be unselfish enough to let them go. I get so pissed when I see family members refuse to have a DNR on Mom or Dad who has terminal CA and on their very last breath. :angryfire I have found that the ease of getting a DNR on Mom or Dad is directly proportional to the quality of their relationship before Mom or Dad got sick. :angryfire:angryfire:angryfire. I do hope care for our elderly changes but at age 50 I'm not holding my breath. Dig me a hole! Actually I want to be cremated but that's a whole new can of worms!

chadash · Mar 10, 2006

that would be making a generalize comment about all cna's and that wouldn't be nice or fair. like rn's and rpn's or bscn's, some are stupid and some aren't. the psw's i work with are very smart and are very good at time management. i am not. i often rely on them to help me manage my time to get my tasks done. am i stupid? i certainly hope not.
i think the reason why i don't get too much grief from the psw's is because it's a "give and take" type of professional relationship. i don't mind if they make jokes about me getting distracted and walking away from report. like i don't cause them too much grief about procedures and "who does what." in the end we all have to get the job done. if that means i have to run to get my med pass done to so i can help get a couple residents up for breakfast and have to stay an extra ten minutes, i don't mind.
but no, i don't think anyone's stupid. and to be honest, in my family, i'm the "family idiot". my dad's a medical professor. my mom was a professor of art and my sister was in the "gifted classes". me? i was considered "pretty slow" by my parents and sister so, i'm pretty sensitive about that word "stupid". i'd never consider anyone stupid or make them feel like it because i know what it feels like to feel pretty stupid.

wouldn't it be nice if everyone could get paid the same and do the jobs that are their strengths because that's what they are need for? i mean, a ceo of a hospital is just as important as the security guard that keeps the hospital staff and patients safe. an rn couldn't do her job if she didn't have help from the psw or lpn.

thanks.