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I usually have 16 patients/residents.I am really getting burned out.I just dont have enough hands or time to get things done.I was just wondering what everyones load is.I work at a nursing home.
i think that's an awful lot of patients/residents to expect one cna to properly care for! i give you all my sincere admiration, you deserve lots of gold stars!!
one reason i held out for a hospital position as a cna was because of stories like yours, i didn't want to get burned out before i even started nursing classes!
In "organized" nursing homes, we each had a maximum of 8 patients each (Alzheimers center) during the day shift and that was managable. More than 8 patients would be too much anywhere during the day shifts or evening shifts but for the night shift 15 patients would be okay. It is almost impossible to give proper care during busy shifts if you have 15 and over. Life Care Centers are known for giving aides more than 15 residents and most of those residents are not taken care of as they should cause you can only spend like so little time with one resident before going to the next one and most of the times you are given like an hour to get them up, clean them up and be in the dining room on time for breakfast with the residents looking clean and presentable.
what is a life care center? I had a class with a lady who works with elderly nuns and they had an insane amount of clients. I honestly don't think you can give quality care to more than 8 people. Some of the places I go in are great and others you can tell they don't even brush their teeth or do the adls they just throw in bed in a gown and go.
At my previous job, I worked evenings (2-10) at a nursing home/rehabilitation center and split a hall of 28 or so with another CNA. Several of these were total cares and only one or two were independent.
Now I work in the Transitional Care Unit of a hospital, and when all 30 beds on the unit are full, I have 6 patients. It's so much easier to do things properly and provide the patients with good care!
Last night I had 30 again. 10 total joint replacements (of which 4 were bilateral knees), 9 were total care ortho surgeries, 7 were in with altered mental status (CONFUSED), and four of them were other med/surg patients. (I'm looking at my assignment sheet.)
I don't know how I survived, especially since one crashed and I had to take him to CT then stat to OR with the doctor and the nurse and I was gone for two hours, which of course put me two hours behind. Somewhere between the multiple cups of coffee I became caught up and left on time.
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i work 3rd shift and when we are fully staffed 2 of us to a wing of about 35 residents, and we get between 8 and 10 people up in the morning. However now i work in the altzheimers wing and have 8 residents by myself and really like that too. I liked the main wing but had ankle surgery so was placed in the altzheimers unit full time. when my ankle heals totallly i will probably pick up the shortages on the main floor when i am off.