Lazy Staff

Nurses Relations

Published

Hello,

Does anyone else have any experience with having Lazy patient care tech's on their floor. The ones on my floor hide in a back room. If you approach them and ask them for help they get upset. I try not to waste time searching for them but I need their help. If I have a 6 or 7 patient assignment it is really hard to provide all of the patient care, pass meds and do assessments, not to mention charting.

Even though we have crappy managment, one thing they do not tolerate is leaving someone soiled to prove a point. I for one will clean anyone up who needs it but if I had told the CNA that I could not help at the moment and there was extra help available with another CNA and he/she refused to prove a point? I would be ******! I mainly work with the elderly so skin breakdown is a MAJOR issure with our floor.

Specializes in Pedi.

Lady aides was the name of the game when I worked in the hospital. VS were never done on time, patients were never washed unless you specifically asked them to do it and even then, eyes were rolled and it was only done if the nurse helped, patients were never turned, I'd find them left in dirty diapers minutes after the aide had done VS (and it obviously wasn't something that they produced in the last 5 minutes), etc.

On this unit, if you didn't tell the aides "you need to do xyz" they wouldn't do it. No proactivity whatsoever. An order for urine to be sent q 2 hrs would be ignored unless you specifically said to the aide "this patient is getting chemo, he needs to be changed every 2 hours and all of his urine needs to be sent." Even then, it likely still wouldn't get done. Part of the problem was chronically low expectations. All the nurses just knew that things wouldn't get done and most got to the point where they were of the mindset that it will be faster/easier for me to just do it myself.

It was even to the point where other units had complained how lazy our aides were whenever they had to float and still nothing was done. We were all amazed when we had an aide float from another unit and our patients VS were done and they were all washed/changed by 10 am.

Specializes in Med-Surg, ER.

I had a critically ill patient in the ER, intubated, extremely hypotensive, even after 10 bags of fluid & 4 units of blood. It was about 6:45 pm, shift change at 7pm. I was basically stuck in this room with the patient until he was ready for a head CT & then went up to ICU. An RN needed to stay with him, but he was my patient & I was with him at the time. I asked my PCT to grab me something like a flush or something innocuous & simple that would take 5 minutes. Her reply, "I can't help you...I get off in 15 minutes" & scampered away. I imagine my jaw may have literally hit the floor. Basically, I ran to grab what I needed & hurried back, infuriated. Of course, I was so busy in the meantime that when the patient was finally upstairs & I spent my 2 hours catching up on the charting AND taking care of my other 3 patients who had been waiting patiently while I semi-stabilized my critical, I was too exhausted to say anything to anyone about it...& it was like 11pm, so there wasn't anyone around to tell of any consequence. This tech is known for being lazy...& a know-it-all. It makes me appreciate the vast majority of good ones. I wonder if she would have given the same excuse had my patient needed CPR at that moment, "I can't help. I get off in 15 minutes."

Specializes in Med/Surg, Academics.

We have really good techs where I work. I've had a couple personality clashes as a newbie--I think they were testing me--that were worked out privately, and now, the working relationships with those two are very collaborative.

The only work-related issue I have had is when a very good tech on a floor I was floated to was insisting on a nursing action on a patient when she didn't know that I was trying to manage an emergent situation. I told her briefly about my priority, and she still didn't get it. I mentioned it to one of my trusted co-workers, and, apparently, a lot of the nurses have the same issue with this particular tech. It seems to me that sometimes long-time techs are so good at their jobs that they are unable to see the priorities of RNs at their jobs, KWIM?

ETA: I had a brief conversation with another tech that I normally don't work with. I was very busy, but the patient was very large, and I knew it would be difficult to do a linen change and clean up alone, and still have enough time to get my job done (close to shift change). I asked the tech to clean the patient up, and I would assist. Faster, right? She mentioned to me, unprompted, that she had just graduated, and she wouldn't be doing "this stuff" anymore. I asked her to what she was referring. She said tech work, and that when she works as a nurse, she's not going to do it anymore.

Looking back, I know this was a childish reaction on my part, but I said, "Ok, then. You can do it." I took my gloves off and walked away.

This is a universal problem.

Write them up each and every time. See my post on insubordination.

Good luck.

Have said it before, and am here to say it again, long as places pay aides and techs barely above minimum wage finding quality is going to be difficult.

Added to this in many areas aides/techs are part of unions and often not the same which represents nurses in a facility. This can make getting shot of a "bad" NA or tech difficult. Sure it can be done but often neither staff, management nor administration want to deal with the paperwork and long drawn out process.

True story:

Last year went with an ill neighbor to the ER of a local but very highly rated Manhattan, NYC hospital. As one sat sitting wating for her to be taken care of the shift changed. Like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, the sitter caring for the elderly patient on the other side of the curtain got up,gathered up her stuff and walked out the door. No good-byes, reporting off, or even a look back! *LOL* Simply couldn't believe what one just saw. The doctors were yelling, nurses bewildered and all one kept hearing is "have her written up for abandonment...".

So they finally found another sitter for the patient by pulling a tech from another floor. She was *not* happy about the arrangement and let any and everyone who would listen (or not as the case may be) know it. The tech also made it quite clear she was *not* going to spend her entire shift "sitting here" so the nursing staff had better make other arrangements if that was their plan.

Mind you this was around 12M or so and one would think that someone would rather have spent the time sitting than being run hard on the floor. So being bored what with my friend now having been taken for X-rays, decided to "go there" and asked the tech what her problem was. Apparently she had her "routine" on the floor and didn't like having it disturbed by floating to another unit/floor. Besides she had studying/homework to do. What was she going to school for? Yes, you guessed it, nursing.

+ Add a Comment