Just An Aide Venting

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Specializes in LTC.

Alright, I just need to vent for a bit about the place that I work. I am just a measily little aide in a 116 bed facility. I am so tired of being over-worked, understaffed, and under-appreciated. Our company "rules" don't seem to apply to anyone but us aides, and even though they stress "team work", the upper-management does not participate with the phrase. I stay on the hall for both breakfast and lunch while my two hall partners go to the dining room to feed residents. My hall is very busy with demanding residents, and I have alot of people that are fall risks down there. Today, I had one of my men who is in extreme pain up on the sit-to-stand lift getting him off the toilet, when I heard an alarm go off. At the top of the hall, there are three offices, with three chairs, with three butts planted on them chairs. I finally got my man on his way back to bed when I heard those damn high heels clunking down the hall. That alarm is still screaming mind you..She(our risk management woman) walked right past the lady who got up out of her chair and pulled her alarm loose, to come and find ME to go shut that alarm up and help that resident. What the.....? She couldn't stand by while the lady used the bathroom? Put her call light on? Called for me? At least make sure she didn't fall?

I don't know, that just really irritated me. I usually always have a positive attitude about work. I know that I try my very best to go above and beyond the the expectations, but my goodness!! I already have 10 people to get up, cleaned, dressed, beds made, etc. in an hour and a half in the morning. And ALL of those people have to use lifts to get up. More than half actually use the toilet, and then our dietary people get all ticked off and snotty at us when we don't have our people down there on time. That is very very time consuming. We are always working short, and I am so tired of it!!!!! Yes, yes, I know, get my rear back to school and quit breaking my back huh!?! It's probably the same way wherever you go too, that's the bad thing about it. These residents pay 1000's of dollars/month to share a room and get told when to eat, toilet, sleep, etc. It seems that they can afford to fully staff a darn place, ya know? Oh well, It'll be better tomorrow, right? aahhh, thank you for this place to vent. I feel like I can get a good nights sleep now:cool:

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Specializes in home & public health, med-surg, hospice.

Nikki,

I'm sorry...:(

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Specializes in Geriatrics.

Been there, done that. For 18 years I have worked as a CNA so believe me, I feel your pain!! Don't really know what to tell ya though either. I think you have this kind of stuff just about everywhere you work. Just try to remember that the residents you are taking care of appreciate all you do for them!!:) Good luck to you, I hope things get better!!

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I personally would be very thankful to have you working with me. I also would be off my butt helping you. ;)

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I personally would be very thankful to have you working with me. I also would be off my butt helping you. ;)

:yeahthat:

It amazes me again and again how it doesn't matter where you are-these are the working conditions. I just don't understand when in the H**l somebody in the higher up is going to say, "Wait a minute...what is wrong with this picture." Health care continue to costs more and more-yet being a patient or an employee is getting to be worse and worse.

It makes me so mad and I would dedicate so much of life working to chage it if I just knew how.

Bless you Nikki.

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Hugs to you:icon_hug: I am aslo an aide and I know it is not a fun job and is very difficult many times. I don't have any advice for you..

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Ugh.

I remember shifts like that when I was a CNA in a LTC facility. One time I had 18 patients on a.m. shift (breakfast/lunch-vitals, a.m. care, get them dressed, get them up, feed some of them and showers!). Usually it was 12.

To be honest with you, I didn't do it very long. I hated it. What I hated was the lack of teamwork. Not the nurses, mind you (they only had 30 assessments to do and med passes, they're just as busy but doing different things) but the aides. It seemed that a lot of aides kept to "their" side of the hall and would not help no matter what.

I hated not being able to give good care. How can someone provide good skin care in 1 minute (it would have to be one minute to be on schedule)? What about getting a 250 pound confused person dressed and into a wheelchair not to mention fighting to get shoes on feet with bent, arthritic toes? I was slow because I tried not to yank people up by the arms and tried to make sure the patient didn't smell bad. I got evil looks for asking for help getting a 300 pound blind man up into a chair using a hoyer (for safety-you really should have 2 people doing that).

My best shifts were evening or night shifts (more patients but not as hectic as day shift) when I found someone to "tag team" with. It really helped. Believe it or not, we got the work done faster and gave better care working together. Not to mention, we worked safer-for us and the patients.

If you are on day shift, can you switch to evenings? Or maybe find a fellow aide and come up with a plan to maybe work together on your hardest patients?

I found a hospital environment to be a bit easier--only 8-10 patients and "some" were partial care. Perhaps you could try home health or hospice? The LTC environment, in my opinion, is brutal. I ended up working as a hospice aide during nursing school. I couldn't do LTC.

Good luck to you.

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Specializes in Med Surg.

I work as an aide in a hospital on third shift so my work is not nearly as stressful as yours, although there have been some nights I ask myself why. I am also a nursing student and I did my clinicals this past semester in a nh and it was terrible. I could not believe a resident would be in the hallway at the nurses station where 3 capable bodies were sitting chatting about who was sleeping with who and they would page the aide overhead to assist the resident. I brought it up to my instructor who talked to the DON but to no avail. You are great person for working where you do because I couldn't do it.

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Nikki, I feel sooooooo bad for you - what you write about your shift is, unfortunately, happening all over the country, all the time. And it has been that way for as long as I can remember. And, even worse is all the poor old folks who are forced to live this way in our nursing homes. Seems like no matter how caring, dedicatied, ambitious a CNA, LP/VN, RN you may be, the system wins. The system that never has enough workers, too many patients per staff, no ward clerks, Just non-stop running, putting patients in danger, never getting breaks or meals, trying to feed ten patients their cold food in a matter of minutes, - Oh, it is all too prevelent, and the reason I could never again work in LTC. Management cares only about the bottom line -$$$$$. And they are the only ones who see it. Wish I knew what to do about it. It is a crime to treat our elderly in this manner. Hope you can either find some inner strength and hang in there, or perhaps you'll need to do what others have done, and move on. Bummer!

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Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

So sorry...............glad you got it off your chest, best wishes to you!

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Specializes in L&D.
:yeahthat:

It amazes me again and again how it doesn't matter where you are-these are the working conditions. I just don't understand when in the H**l somebody in the higher up is going to say, "Wait a minute...what is wrong with this picture." Health care continue to costs more and more-yet being a patient or an employee is getting to be worse and worse.

It makes me so mad and I would dedicate so much of life working to chage it if I just knew how.

Bless you Nikki.

:yeahthat: :yeahthat: Yeah health care is ..um Messed UP!!!!!

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Nikki! Good luck to you! I am a LTC RN Supervisor ( I have to pass meds at the same time as supervise). We need more caring people like you in LTC. It is very hard to keep the caring ones because of the work load.

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