cna diary - 03/13/2010

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Today is my first day ( we work four days and have two days off )to get back to work. After finishing distribuing the clothes to their cabinet, I started changing their diapers. When I was working on room 216, I heard big sound hitting the floor; I ran out of the room and checked other immediate rooms. I found a patient lying down on the floor and her forehead was bleeding. I was shocked and rushed to the front station and called charged nurses for help. We put the patient to the bed and they began treatment. About an hour later, the ambulance came and she was sent to the hospital.

I felt upset all day long. As a nursing assistant, we have to take care of fourteen patients in evening shift which is from 2pm to 10pm. For this patient, I changed her diaper and put both side rails up. Her head was raised up and her feet too. I could not figure out why and how did she slide down to the floor. Most of our patients here are with G tube or confused. To be honest, it's a big pressure to us to handle fourteen patients in a shift because some patients even playing pu pu, so we need to take extra time for cleaning. I pray she will recover soon but I wish someday we could reduce our patients to ten or under for each nursing assistant, so we have more time to watch out our patients.

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Specializes in Peds OR as RN, Peds ENT as NP.

I understand exactly how you feel. We have a similar patient-CNA ratio where I work from 3-11pm. As a matter of fact, we brung it up at the employee forum where supervisors, administrators, and CNAs are all in the same room and we were told "We are on a budget and it costs us more to have more CNAs!" All the CNAs were so angry. We weren't talking about hiring outside help, current employees are STARVING for hours and would love to come in and work! Then in the next sentence they say they want this facility to stay full and hope more doctors to refer patients here!!

This type of work is tough and sometimes you have to grin (fake grin of course) and bear it. CNAs are the only people who understand CNAs sometimes.

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Specializes in burn unit, ER, ICU-CCU, Education, LTC.

I was a CNA before I was an RN. I know how much you care about your patients and how little authority you have about their care.

You did the best you could under your circumstances and should not feel guilty about what happened to your patient. A union may help you to have fewer patients so that you can watch them more closely. Good luck.

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yea thats how it is where i work too...but sounds u did everything correct and sometimes these things just happen...isnt anyones fault...but we can all pray for that day to come but i doubt it will anytime soon.:crying2:

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I understand exactly how you feel. We have a similar patient-CNA ratio where I work from 3-11pm. As a matter of fact, we brung it up at the employee forum where supervisors, administrators, and CNAs are all in the same room and we were told "We are on a budget and it costs us more to have more CNAs!" All the CNAs were so angry. We weren't talking about hiring outside help, current employees are STARVING for hours and would love to come in and work! Then in the next sentence they say they want this facility to stay full and hope more doctors to refer patients here!!

This type of work is tough and sometimes you have to grin (fake grin of course) and bear it. CNAs are the only people who understand CNAs sometimes.

dam do we work in the same place???lol

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Specializes in LTC.

That happened to me once. I did care on this one guy and put him to bed early because he was complaining about being tired. He then climbed out of bed and fell while I was bringing another resident to the bathroom. He broke his hip and died. I felt soooo bad even though I followed the care plan to a T. Normally when someone I did care on "falls" it's actually just them scooting out of bed so I don't care.

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Specializes in home health, dialysis, others.

It wouldn't matter if you had two patients or twenty-two. You can't be in every room at the same time, falls are bound to happen. Don't allow yourself to feel bad, or guilty, you just can't be everywhere.

Some falls are going to happen no matter what you do. You obviously care for your patients, but you cannot control the universe. Maintain a positive outlook.

Best wishes.

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I understand exactly how you feel. We have a similar patient-CNA ratio where I work from 3-11pm. As a matter of fact, we brung it up at the employee forum where supervisors, administrators, and CNAs are all in the same room and we were told "We are on a budget and it costs us more to have more CNAs!" All the CNAs were so angry. We weren't talking about hiring outside help, current employees are STARVING for hours and would love to come in and work! Then in the next sentence they say they want this facility to stay full and hope more doctors to refer patients here!!

This type of work is tough and sometimes you have to grin (fake grin of course) and bear it. CNAs are the only people who understand CNAs sometimes.

Thanks for your comments. :)

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I was a CNA before I was an RN. I know how much you care about your patients and how little authority you have about their care.

You did the best you could under your circumstances and should not feel guilty about what happened to your patient. A union may help you to have fewer patients so that you can watch them more closely. Good luck.

Thank you very much. I switched my career to nursing; it's really totally different from the field I worked before. :)

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yea thats how it is where i work too...but sounds u did everything correct and sometimes these things just happen...isnt anyones fault...but we can all pray for that day to come but i doubt it will anytime soon.:crying2:

Thanks. :)

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I understand exactly how you feel. We have a similar patient-CNA ratio where I work from 3-11pm. As a matter of fact, we brung it up at the employee forum where supervisors, administrators, and CNAs are all in the same room and we were told "We are on a budget and it costs us more to have more CNAs!" All the CNAs were so angry. We weren't talking about hiring outside help, current employees are STARVING for hours and would love to come in and work! Then in the next sentence they say they want this facility to stay full and hope more doctors to refer patients here!!

This type of work is tough and sometimes you have to grin (fake grin of course) and bear it. CNAs are the only people who understand CNAs sometimes.

In our CNA's meeting, we had same response from DSD. When we had some complaints about our pressure, she would say - " the door is open, if you do not like your work, you may leave. " Then, we become quieter and quieter later on. Thanks for your comments. :)

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Thanks.

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