rocknroll01

You know it has been almost over a year since I saw the problems that started at the long term care facility happened as much as I hate to say it it left a very bad taste with me. I think that it is a shame that CNA's have to constantly hear "Find a way to work more efficiently. How many time I have heard that. The problems are not always on our side it sometimes must be taken care of on the management side. It's called hiring. Not that hard to figure out. After I left the facility they hired more CNA's and are doing fine. Why does someone have to leave in order for them to get it.

I am really glad to see that there are so many of the CNAs that have encountered these problems and hopefully something can be done as far as relieving the stress from this job. I know that there are many great nurses out there and to them I tip my hat and thank them for all they have done and continue to do. The problem that I see are with the puppets that are hanging on to their jobs because of under staffing and putting the work off on CNAs. In the time that I worked as a CNA I have never quite felt the closeness or the compassion to do a great job for not only myself, but for my residents as well. What a lot of people don't realize is we are the ones that eat, sleep, and breath our residents, patients, and home care individuals.

It is sad to think that because there are budget constraints that occur in these homes that the CNA is expected to, "behind closed doors", violate procedures but yet if they are caught by state they will be thrown under the bus. I have seen this done many times by older CNAs that again look down upon the rookie CNAs. It is sometimes hard to look up to someone that is teaching you the wrong in order to keep their job.

I personally reported all of these issue to both the charge nurses on both shifts who chose to ignore all the issues at hand. Finally after I quit and I did my exit interview the DON admitted that additional workers would be hired for the lifts and other shortcoming and oversights of the management. It is sad that I had to quit and have the Unemployment Department side against me and cut off my unemployment. Well at least I didn't violate any procedures and at least the residents now might have some proper care for a change.

The problem is is this applies to not only lifting but any thing that a CNA does. This would include any procedure. I have seen residents with high fall risks that are left alone, residents left in showers alone and left on toilets for an hour because facilities place the blame on the CNA's by saying if they don't complete the task they say that they are abandoning them.

What I have seen in some of the stories is something that I think that all CNA's should think about. I too was asked to operate lifts by myself and refused and ran into the same situation as the others and that was you were looked upon as being "less of a CNA". I looked into other procedures or "short cuts", they called, which were being done by the "so called" more seasoned CNAs and found that they violated state procedure policy. This is something that I have noticed at several facilities. This presents a major problem when you are being pressured into violating, to what you know as to being, the correct way of caring for the resident. CNA's should be aware if you violate a procedure, and you know that it is a violation, you can loose your certification and be terminated. That is a double edge sword because the company that you are working for can turn blind eye to the fact that they have intentionally understaffed the facility to save money. So the problem is is do you do the right thing and not violate the procedure and risk being terminated because of speed or do you violate procedure and keep your job. I think that this is something that needs to be addressed by each individual.