The supervisors at my long-term care facility are getting rather frustrated with the lack of respect given their authority by the Certified Nurses Aides. A supervisor will tell an aide she needs to float to another unit to help out, and the aide will flat out refuse to go. She'll say, "I'm not going, and you can't make me go." This leads to long discussions, time which could be better used for resident care. Sometimes an aide will refuse to clock in until she's told on which unit she's assigned. She'll threaten to go home if she doesn't like her assignment. Supervisors cannot be as strict as they would like to be in enforcing the rules because they don't want to compromise resident care by lowering the staff:resident ratio.
My question is this: Since the aides are certified, is there any board to which they must answer in disciplinary matters? Can they lose their certification for insubordination and compromising resident care?
It seems to me that if they were afraid of not only losing their job, but their livelihood (their certification, and, therefore, their chance of working anywhere else as an aide), they wouldn't be so quick to defy authority and jeopardize the health of the residents.
