Long Term Hell

[Yuriel718]

I've Been in long term care/ Nursing homes / Subacute / Long Term rehab for about a year now. Going in I really didn't expect this. During our externship the amount of work we really do day to day wasn't properly introduced to us. Ive worked for one particular "conglomerate" of nursing homes in nyc and interviewed for another. And they are all pretty much the same. Everyone is super busy and because of this a the nursing aspect of nursing has been lost. Pretty much you have about 40 residents you have to technically give them all from 3 to 10 different medications correctly be it eye drops, via gtubes, via nebulizer.Technically your supposed to to have different administration times for many meds but I see many nurses just bundle the meds all at once because they wont have enough time to make a second pass for 40 people. These patients/residents aren't stable. They Have COPD,Seizures,Dementia,Heart conditions,Uncontrolled diabetes and many other conditions.If one thing goes wrong that may take you more than half an hour to stabilize/transfer the patient.Imagine this going on with multiple patients. ANd a med pass is not easy.Some patient lack understanding as to why they have to take their meds or even how to take them you have to take time with them.you have to provide therapeutic care.I see alot of nurses completely miss the therapeutic care.Even when feeding the patients they just shove the food into their mouth.Then you have to take vitals for multiple patients or asses them that takes time too. Most nurses Dont get a Lunch break,dont leave on time and don't get paid for it.The worst thing is Nursing homes have lost the real nursing aspect of nursing.If this is the reality of nursing homes in nyc why do most nurses accept it.Why don't we try to get legislative action to help this. Can you relate to what Im saying? I dont see the unions helping the nurses with this crisis.So what can we do together and where do we start to resolve this problem?