Nurses who let NAs Boss them around

[PhePhe]

When will nurses ever learn to delegate? When will nurses ever collectively stand up and get some backbone--Fight for higher wages, and better benefits like a company matching 401K plan?

I get sick when I work at institutions (I am an agency nurse) and I see the Nurses aides doing whatever they want when they want--unlimited breaks, breaks all at once together leaving the floor uncovered, flat out refusing to answer lights or doing a task.

Its no wonder nurses are leaving the profession in droves. Management appears to be scared to approach the NAs too, but have no trouble when it comes to chastizing an RN. Whenever I ask an RN why they tolerate a situation, the response is always the same--management lets them get away with it. I have returned to Nursing after 13 years of working in a business setting. Not much has changed. PT, Pharmacists, and OT have all manged to get substancial financial increases while many nurses are still making $21 bucks an hour. I don't allow NAs to get the best of me, and all I get for my trouble is even more resentment. Not all NAs are like this but I will go out on a limb and say the lack of RN delegation and management skills are detrimental to the professionof nurses.

Phe Phe, RN, BSN, MBA

[toadie]

i'm working as an NA to put myself through nursing school. the hospital were i work calls us SNT(student nurse tech) but it's all the same. i have to say that i agree. i would love for the nurses to take the initiative and tell some of these NA's what needs done. i went into nursing bc i want to help people and when things dont get done it seems like im the one to pick up all the slack. nurses dont tell them what to do so its not like they will listen to another NA. its not fair to NA who will work to have to deal with NAs who wont work. so, if no other voice on here makes u think more about delegation, listen to me.

[pebbles1977]

Ok,

I have to admit I only got through about 1/2 of this thread, so forgive me if my message is out of place.

I just wanted to share a situation that happened recently. I was a part of a quasi management team and left recently for several reasons, one being lack of NM backup. There was a certain NA who wowed us all when she started, then became a terrible employee. I mean falsifying docs, skipping the "hard" pts, etc. She worked on the evening shift. Let me back up to what my position was. I was clinical lead on days, and we had clinical leads for all the shifts. Clinical leads on our units were charge RNs with administrative duties.

So my fellow clinical lead on evenings kept documentation of all of this NAs issues. Before I left, my NM told me she believed this even CL was on a "witch hunt" with another nurse to get this NA fired. I knew better.

There were some day shifts she would work, and I knew she ignored certain pts (we assigned only certain ones to the NAs to lessen their loads - and we were a 22 bed unit). So this NA wouldn't even do things like Is and Os, rather she'd spend her time flirting w/the pt equipment guys, etc,

It took over 6 mos of documentation from the ev CL PLUS this NA showing up late, calling out, basically absentee probs, to get her fired. My NM had a bad situation with firing another employee (who hung chemo on the wrong pt by the way!), so she was skiddish to fire anyone. Whatever. This NA was reported by pts as trying to "play" the nurse against them. This is what the pts would say. That she would leave them in soil and tell them that it was the RNs job to clean it up... of course she didn't TELL the RN that the pt was in need, and you can guess what happened. Pts aren't stupid, but sometimes NMs are.

That's all.