Nurses will do the CNA job

Nurses General Nursing

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I heard that some hospitals are requiring nurses do the cna jobs. Just want to know if this is true or not.

Specializes in Pediatric/Adolescent, Med-Surg.

Just thought I'd throw in my :twocents: As a nurse, call me selfish, but I like being able to do what I can for my pts, not just push pills and chart. If I can help them place a meal order, or help them to the bathroom, I'm thrilled to be able to. As a former, PCT, I understand what unsafe ratios they work under. I typically had 20-37 pts to provide total care on as a PCT, by myself. I am thrilled that as a nurse I have 4 pts max, so I am able to provide pt care. This is why I went to nursing school, not just to push pills, but to be involved with my pts, and how am I better suited for that than by involving myself in pt care?

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No, I don't see the CNA as an extension or assistant to me.

Certified Nurse's ASSISTANT. :)

Not only am I your assistant but I am certified to boot. :smokin:

Heh...

I am not sure how it works in a hospital, but in LTC the Aide most certainly is an extension. We are the nurses eyes, ears, backup, etc.

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Specializes in LTC/SNF, Psychiatric, Pharmaceutical.

In LTC, a CNA is an absolute necessity, since each day, half of the residents in the facility (at least) must be bathed, and ALL residents must be dressed, toileted, fed, and repositioned - several times a day, EVERY DAY (and night). In my area, all facilities have CMAs too. Are LTCs going to hire multiple nurses to perform tasks that can be legally delegated to unlicensed personnel? Uh, no.

With everything involved in being a charge nurse to a LTC - wound care, respiratory care, fingersticks, insulins, other injections, Medicare and other documentation - nurses really don't have time in LTC to perform ADL care, and the CNAs MUST step up to the plate. That's not to say that I wouldn't roll up my sleeves and pitch in if too few CNAs were available and behind through no fault of their own. However, although most CNAs will walk on coals to ensure care is given even under the worst circumstances, a bad CNA is a liability, and in the absence of really being able to do anything about bad actors, I've gone ahead and provided basic care to the residents when my efforts to find the assigned CNA were in vain, since you can't leave a resident sitting in soiled clothing, but this was at the expense of work that only I as the nurse was licensed to do, and some nurses' work cannot be blown off (insulins have to be given on-schedule, for instance). So yes, there is a such thing as "CNA work." If one member of "The Team" isn't pulling their weight, everyone else suffers.

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Specializes in acute care.

I am so glad my lab Professor is banging it into ours heads from day one that nurses are not above cleaning poop, and shouldn't look down on doing CNA work. A student (an EMT) recently asked if nurses are expected to cleaned up poop, or if it's just the CNA's job. The professor said it's the nurse's job which I think shocked some of the students, some of them previous pharm majors.

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.

Hospitals in my area did this 3 years ago. They don't have any CNAs (maybe one for an entire floor) and NO LVNs at all. RNs do it all, from bedbaths to assessments, nursing diagnoses, I.V.s, trach care, wound care.........ect.......(my friend was working as an LVN while getting his RN while this went into effect, they told him he was not needed anymore but if he really needed a job he could stick around for minimum wage....)

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Certified Nurse's ASSISTANT. :)

Not only am I your assistant but I am certified to boot. :smokin:

Heh...

I am not sure how it works in a hospital, but in LTC the Aide most certainly is an extension. We are the nurses eyes, ears, backup, etc.

It's the patient's your "assisting", not me. Are you bathing the patients, turning them, feeding them, or providing them water FOR ME? Are you waiting FOR ME everyday to ask you to do these things FOR ME? No your not.

No, nursing assistants do not need to be certified to work in a hospital, definately not in MI. As in LTC there are things they are required to inform the nurse about and that is part of their job, again that is providing "assistance" to the patient by passing pertinent information on to the appropriate person.

In fact some places are getting aware from the title "nurse assistant" because of the fact it's not the nurse they are providing "assistance" to but the patient, instead they are using titles like PCT (Patient Care Tech). In Ontario, Canada the term PSW (Personal Support Worker) is used instead of "nursing assistant" and the Health Professions Act stipulates that only those with a license to practice nursing in that province can use the title "nurse" or the word "nurse" incorporated into their title.

Nurses receive orders from physicians and base their care on those orders, we also are required to report changes in patient condition to the physician. Nurses aren't the physician's assistant, or "little helper," why is that? Because a nurse isn't there for the doctor. Whether certified or not, whether they are called nursing assistants or not, your job is to assist the patients not the nurse.

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You are missing my point.

Nurses are not a doctor's assistant because nursing and medicine are 'different' fields. The physician's assistant IS the doctors assistant.

The same goes for nursing. If you work the floor, and you lose your CNA's and they are not replaced you are EXPECTED to fill in for them. If you never had a CNA you are expected to fulfill that function. That is what a nurse is. A caregiver which includes ADLS, changing bedpans, etc. A CNA is an unskilled (referring to training/labor) caregiver.

You are arguing semantics. Yes, even though I am helping the patients, the act of helping patients IS assisting you because the existence of the aide allows the facility to cut YOUR job description in half. Loss of CNA's would result in your job description changing to include the duties you were responsible for before orderlies and CNA's existed.

:)

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You are missing my point.

Nurses are not a doctor's assistant because nursing and medicine are 'different' fields. The physician's assistant IS the doctors assistant.

The same goes for nursing. If you work the floor, and you lose your CNA's and they are not replaced you are EXPECTED to fill in for them. If you never had a CNA you are expected to fulfill that function. That is what a nurse is. A caregiver which includes ADLS, changing bedpans, etc. A CNA is an unskilled (referring to training/labor) caregiver.

You are arguing semantics. Yes, even though I am helping the patients, the act of helping patients IS assisting you because the existence of the aide allows the facility to cut YOUR job description in half. Loss of CNA's would result in your job description changing to include the duties you were responsible for before orderlies and CNA's existed.

:)

Stanley, my job is not cut in half, not in the least by the presence of a nursing assistant, nor is my job description. If the nursing assistant was not there, I would be severely limited in what I could do to replace their function, there would be patients unbathed, a lot of ADLs not getting done. What does happen in these situations with nurses when the floor is short on nursing assistants is that care is done on a priority basis, and a lot of things undone. Do you honestly really think the presence of the nursing assistant cuts my job in half?

BTW I wasn't missing your point at all. I just don't see it the way you do. Now that's something we can both agree upon.:specs:

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Specializes in Ante-Intra-Postpartum, Post Gyne.

Nurses are not a doctor's assistant because nursing and medicine are 'different' fields. The physician's assistant IS the doctors assistant.

:)

A little off topic but:

Are you talking about Medical Assistants? Medical Assistants assist the doctor... because there is no such thing as a Physician's Assistant...there is a Physician Assistants (not Physician's Assistant) who give medical Dx, write prescriptions, and treat patients...with a doctor that can be used as a consulter....When my friend applied to PA school for the first time a few years back (she just graduated this summer) she made the mistake of saying "Physician's Assistant" instead of "Physician Assistant" and got chewed a new one because PAs are not physician's assistants.....

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Talk to old nurses in a nursing home. Your job WAS cut down...

Before orderlies and CNA's nurses were responsible AND expected to accomplish it all.

In many hospitals LPNS basically function as an aide.

No one said your job was cut precisely 50% but what comprises a CNA's job now WAS a nurses job and ultimately still is. Otherwise you wouldn't be held responsible. :)

Now therapy isn't your job and when therapists don't do their job you aren't held responsible because it is not and never has been a nurse's responsibility.

But we can disagree and have different POV's :)

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Specializes in EMS~ ALS.../...Bartending ~ Psych :).

Well, I am going to school to learn among other things "Patient care" (and mind you, I didn't say "client" care).

To me when I think nurse, I think patient care. Which, to me includes assisting with daily living skills. I realize documentation has to be done, but for crying out loud, thats not what I think of when I think nursing... If they are my patients, then I want to take care of them....

When my kids were little, I didn't run looking for their father to wipe their butt, if I was cooking dinner, I went and wiped their butt..

Note to self..... *Get hired on an ICU*

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Talk to old nurses in a nursing home. Your job WAS cut down...

Before orderlies and CNA's nurses were responsible AND expected to accomplish it all.

In many hospitals LPNS basically function as an aide.

No one said your job was cut precisely 50% but what comprises a CNA's job now WAS a nurses job and ultimately still is. Otherwise you wouldn't be held responsible. :)

Now therapy isn't your job and when therapists don't do their job you aren't held responsible because it is not and never has been a nurse's responsibility.

But we can disagree and have different POV's :)

Well, not seeing any orderlies these days around the hospital. In fact haven't seen any since the mid 90's in any hospital I've worked at. Not saying they no longer exist, it's just not a role I've seen these days.

You may want to duck, because LPNs don't basically function as an aide in a hospital, I think a few will be along to correct you on that.

If your talking PT/OT, wrong, we often do pick up their slack, and at one time their job was part of ours. In fact, I can think of a few occasions where ROM excercises were ordered for patients and it wasn't PT or the NA that was doing them. When PT/OT are consulted, yes it is our responsibilty to see that they receive that notification. If PT/OT don't see a patient they're supposed to and they claim they never received the consult or notification, guess who they're looking at?

The nurse's job wasn't necessarily "cut down" because if you talk to those "old" nurses they're going to tell you things changed. That change was the expansion of the nurses role and responsibility. It's also because of that change the role of nursing assistant was created and that's why you see PT/OT utilized in hospitals. What was given to PT/OT and NAs that was once part of the nurse's job was done so to accommodate the expansion of the nurses role.

BTW I like the siggy line another member has from Gerald Ford: You can disagree without being disagreeable. I think it's great that we've been able to do that.:)

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