Medication Aides

Nurses General Nursing

Published

:confused:

I am asking this question of you because I have looked for days for my answer and am still empty handed. I need to know where I might find information on medication aides and their state practice limitations for Massachusetts. I know this is an odd forum to ask this question but I am at my wits end. I am doing this for a friend who Manages a Community Health Center. Thank you!

i have to tell you,, i am a med aide. and where i work, no you dont have to be a cna...i am. but i refused to become a med aide for about 5 years...and only did to save my back. I think it is terrible, to trust people (anyone off the street) to sit throug 32 hours of class (if that) and then let them pass out meds...even give INSULIN!!!! believe me, i have all the faith in the world in myself....but so what. Its a sin to pay med aides practically nothing to do pretty much what the nurse is also doing.....and its a sin and a cut to nurses to trust us med aides to do a nurses job. the goverment really needs to put more thought into this whole thing....and it is a state by state program

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i live in texas and iam a medication aide. i went to college for 6months (at weatherford college) to become a certified medication aide. yes we are legal!!!!! and i get paid $14/hour. i work at a nursing home and we are an excellent help. if you worked in a nursing home environment you would know how much we actually are needed and a necessity. the nurses have so much work to do that they dont even have time to pass medication. yes we do administer narcartics (controlled substances) and yes we have to learn all the medication and the uses and side effects ect... we have to know all the right procedures and techniques to administer them as well. if you have any questions feel free to ask me. but iam kinda insulted that as nurses and such yahll cant even do a little research before you started saying rude and nonfactual information. doing a little research is a big part of your job. we as medication aides take a huge work load off the nurses back so they can focus on new admissions, paper work, wound changes, treatments ect...

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Specializes in Med Surg, LTC, Home Health.

Medication aides should not exist. Nurses must band together to fight against taking our skills and giving them to under-qualified persons. Sure we are overloaded with work, but they should hire more nurses to alleviate our burden. We should never accept an unsafe, undereducated "medication aide" to assist us. If they keep giving away our skills to uneducated people, soon we will be competing against them for jobs while they are willing to take half the pay. Then who do you think companies will hire? Im sorry medication aides, but you are just a scam to make more money by having less nurses perpetrated by greedy facilities. Quit your job today to give nurses and patients the justice they deserve! You are compromising our hard earned careers, and putting patients at needless risk. Finally, if you cant spell "narcotics", there is no way on this planet you should be administering them! :twocents:

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Its a shame that you are a medication aide and dont see the reality of it all. I also work in the same sort of setting as you do. Yes the nurses have a ton of work, but it should never be allowed to have someone do the same type of work, and have barely an education. 6 months is nothing compared to going to nursing school. sorry if i sound rude. the only thing we med aides are, are a cheap nurse....and its not right.

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i totally agree with you. I feel like a terrible person still working in that position. and i only do it, cause now i dont have to go to the chiropracter once a week. and it pays a little bit more. i also went to nursing school but never finished. so i do have a little more trust in myself than others that they just pull off the street and have them become med aides. what is it gonna take??? something really really bad to happen to a patient before they look into this more??????

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If med aides were allowed to work in hospitals and we hired them I wouldn't work there any longer. I can't put my license on the line for someone else doing meds on my behalf. I know that sounds like a knock to med aides but it really isn't meant to be. It's a knock to the system that would allow unlicensed healthcare workers to do it in the first place.

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Specializes in Med Surg, LTC, Home Health.

Thank you schmuffin! I am glad you got out of the backbreaking work of CNA, and that you see the atrocity that is being perpetrated here. Im sure many nurses in LTC are so happy to have a medication aide, but they are making a grave mistake having that perspective. We have to preserve each and every skill that is unique to nurses and fight tooth and nail to assure that they do not give them away!

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Specializes in Cardiac.
If med aides were allowed to work in hospitals and we hired them I wouldn't work there any longer.

Me either. I'm sorry, unlicensed people should not pass any kind of meds...

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I am probably the only Med Aide that agrees with all you nurses. But I started nursing school, although never finished. But i know how hard and demanding it is. And I feel like a hypocrite right now working as a med aide. It is terrible that the whole health care field is only concerning themselves with making and saving themselves a buck, and not the life of a human being.........:thankya:

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Specializes in Geriatrics.
i live in texas and iam a medication aide. i went to college for 6months (at weatherford college) to become a certified medication aide. yes we are legal!!!!! and i get paid $14/hour. i work at a nursing home and we are an excellent help. if you worked in a nursing home environment you would know how much we actually are needed and a necessity. the nurses have so much work to do that they dont even have time to pass medication. yes we do administer narcartics (controlled substances) and yes we have to learn all the medication and the uses and side effects ect... we have to know all the right procedures and techniques to administer them as well. if you have any questions feel free to ask me. but iam kinda insulted that as nurses and such yahll cant even do a little research before you started saying rude and nonfactual information. doing a little research is a big part of your job. we as medication aides take a huge work load off the nurses back so they can focus on new admissions, paper work, wound changes, treatments ect...

Well, I wish I could have learned all this in 6 months too. congrats on your 6 month "college degree". I work as a NURSE in LTC, and dont have med aids, gee, I do just fine......

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oh yeah by the way, I had 4 days of training, and probably do more than you do, in the 6 months that it took you to learn this. Our med aides give out meds, give insulin, narcotics, paperwork, admissions, discharges, deaths,......support plans.......we are cheap nurses......just admit it!

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LTC medication passes are somewhat like an assembly line. You pull and pass the meds as fast as you can, there is no time for assessments. 30 to 40 patients, averaging probably 10 meds apiece, maybe more. Some take their meds crushed, some have to be talked into taking the meds, hunting down meds, hunting down residents, answering questions, residents with immediate needs begging to be helped, prn pain meds, prns for agitation, prns for constipation...

and all am meds MUST be passed in a 1 hour time frame.

Then, minor dressings, breathing treatments, reordering meds, and start the 1000 pass.

Repeat chaos for 1200, 1300, 1400,

It isn't anything like hospital work. It is a monotonous (sp?), stressfull, nerve racking job that very few nurses will do.

Possibly use of CMTs will continue until there is nursing home reform?

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