fustrated

[goldennurse]

I work in ltc and i am totally fustrated with our cna's! i was a cna for 8 yrs. before going to nursing school and i know what a hard and underacknowledged job they have, but being "the nurse" is not a walk in the park either! my main concern is the lack of respect towards residents, families and anyone else who isn't a cna. it's not above me to answer a call light or empty a bedpan or change a brief, but while i'm doing that they are at the desk, on the phone, on their 5 th break,...etc., whle it's 11 am and i'm still passing 9am meds. small requests..like getting someone out of bed,toileting a resident or anything which resembles asking them to do something "extra" is met with attitude! i have tried writing them up, management chooses to turn the other cheeck, fully aware of the problem. HELP!

[dhogan]

i know exactly how your feel. we have the same problem on my floor. it has improved because we a very good cna that all the nurses praise and write recommendations for. we so discreetly let the others hear our praises and see the notes . this has changed the others attitude alot.they try harder especially when she is working. and when they do a good job we try to thank them.

i also do like you but some take advantage of that and sit around while i do their job.

so now i make sure to find them and tell them their patients needs them.

[MollyJ]

As many of you know, I work in a High School and middle school doing drug prevention. One thing that schools hear about ALL of the time from the work community is that young people come to them with a very poor work ethic--ie non-reliability, come late--leave early, abuse of breaks, lack of independent thinking skills (they have to be asked to perform work instead of identifying undone tasks and just doing them), ad infinitum. They even say, we'll teach 'em the skills they need to work our shop--if you could just teach them the above! Well, I think alot of these values based "skills" start at home, myself.

When I was a new grad, our NA's were often women who had raised their kids and not done any post grade school or high school training. But for the most part, they were very well self-directed people and MANY of them were like having an extension of your right hand. They would tell you they had a concerning blood pressure or that their wasn't very much urine in Mr. X's Foley bag. By the time, I left the ED about 5 years ago, I often doubted the quality of vitals taken by my NA's and intuitiveness was a rare gift from God. And I am not saying every single NA was that way. We still had a few that if they said, "You need to come," you needed to come.

But what I am wanting to say is that the comments that you are making that apply to some not all NA's are a reflection of the semi-skilled work force in America. BTW, some of these folks can be turned into fine workers if you tell 'em what you want, praise them when they do it and show them that you are willing to work side by side with them on difficult tasks when you can.

[sWolfie]

As a CNA, I can honestly say I know where you are coming from. We have many lazy nurses and aides where I work. Yes, even the bad attitudes from both too. We don't have RN's on our floor. There's this one LPN who will be sitting at the desk talking on the phone (personal call), have to hang up to tell me there is a call light going off. I am in the middle of cleaning a resident of BM and vomit.

It's just not us aides. BTW...the resident who was ringing didn't need anything, she just dropped her light button on the floor and it accidently went off.

Peace!!

"S"

[Stargazer]

Molly, I think you make a lot of good points. One thing I would suggest is making sure that the CNA's know, and have had specifically spelled out for them, exactly what the expectations are for their jobs. I still remember my very first clinical rotation in nursing school. The first day, a number of people were several minutes late. Our instructor gathered us together and told us that being late for your shift was unprofessional & unacceptable, period. Nobody in my group was ever late again. They weren't lazy or stupid, they just needed to be told what the expectations were.

In another clinical rotation, sometimes I would finish my work early and would spend my extra time looking things up that I'd seen that day, until a senior staff nurse on the unit told me that if I finished early, I was expected to help the other nurses finish their work. Now, you can argue that, as a student, that WASN'T the most appropriate use of my time--but the point is, that was the expectation on that unit.

Maybe these CNA's need a little "pep talk" and some written guidelines from the unit manager. Maybe they need incentives for work done well (praise, notes in their files) or disincentives for poor work performance (not getting the primo schedules, poor work appraisals, etc.) Maybe someone needs to meet with them to find ut what THEY perceive as obstacles in getting the work done and what would motivate them to take ownership of, and pride in their work, and help them to let go of their "us-against-them" attitude.

[momangel29]

I see you live in Florida and so do I.We might even work in the same place. I have tried to have a better understanding of other coworkers but the problem I have comes from the top. Writing them up doesn't help if management won't look at it. You are aware that Florida Board of Nursing is making a CNA practice act and now,currently, they are now accountable to the Board of Nursing for their actions.You can just report them directly.Also the new Florida bill was passed saying that we have to have more staff and it is going to improve the staff patient ratio until they cap it in 2004. Things will get better.