notsoinocent88

I am working at a local long term care facility. I have had my CNA status since Oct. of 07 but only have 14 month of actual working experience. I was unemployed from March '08 untill August '09. Have been at the same place for since August. I have had to call in multiple time (almost excessively) due to the fact of 3 deaths in family, several immediate family member being hospitilized, and rarely being sick. I belive that I have missed about 20 days of work 5 of those were due to me being sick 3 of those were doctor excused. I have been written up twice once for the shift after mine claiming that I left 3 of my 24 resident I had to provide care for wet, putting multiple breifs on residents, and failure to have residents in dinning room. This write up I contested and had removed from my file because 1. we were short staffed and assigned 12 residents more than usually assigned 2. people are going to soil and if only 3 of 24 voided after I completed my rounds I thought they were lucky 3. When it came time for breakfast and to get the people into the dinning room, had already been done while taking the barrels out. The other time that I had been written up is for "failure to provide care" which I'll talk about in a min. Ok so now that my background is covered I can further state that I know I'm an excellent CNA. Residents that The problem that I am having is a LPN just out of school started a month after me. Everything was ok we got along fine untill about a month later when I was needing her to change a residents breakdown dressing. The resident had to be in the dinning room at 7 am. I asked her to change the dressing at 4:30 am and twice after. At 6:50 the dressing had not been changed when asked her again she told me that she would get to it when she could get a min. So I asked another nurse to change the dressing for me. The nurse told me that she would see what she could do. Like a min or two later the first nurse was changing the dressing but was furious at me for asking another nurse to dress the wound (I think that she got scolded) and while I was assisting her with the dressing (she did a really poor job so bad that I actually had to get more gauze and tape after she left the room to cover the wound, which made her look worse because a CNA had to fix her work). After then she is the only nurse that I have had problems with. Every time that we work together she is always looking for something to write me up for. She is the one that wrote me up for failure to provide care. When she wrote me up the paper that I signed stated that I did not provide care to residents. I argued with her infront of another nurse but she won because it was my word against hers and they believed her before me. I was taken off the schedule for three days. Well last week I was very dizzy and not feeling well due to fluid in my inner ear. It was bad enough that I asked another CNA for assistance to transfer someone that I could have usually picked up and carried like a baby(not that I would) because I didn't want to take a chance of hurting her. Well an hour before time to leave to go home the CNA come to me and said that since it was almost time to leave that if I would complete my rounds a little early and made sure that my residents that were required to be up and ready she would watch my section of the hall. I told her that I would really appreciate it and that I would owe her big time. When I asked the nurse she said that I could go home but she would have to tell the ADON about it because she would find out any ways because of the time card reports. I told her that was fine and I would for a fact be back that night no matter what I felt bad enough about leaving early that I took the barrels out so that the CNA that covered for me wouldn't have to. When I reported for work I had been taken off the schedule for three days because the nurse said that she had sent me home because I was crying, being dramatic and that it was easier for her to do my last round than to put up with me. When I told the nurse supervisor what really happened she stated that she was told nothing like my story and that it would be discussed on monday with the adon. I really think this nurse is out to get me. And so do some other people my work is never questioned with other nurses and the one or two times that I am asked about something I tell what happened (not an excuse I don't belive in excuses) and fix it. (usually its I forgot to re-zinc or put back on the person's turn schedule). Does anyone else have problem like this?

I am a male CNA going to school do further my education in the nursing field. I live in alabama and work at a local LTC facility a.k.a. nursing home where the majority of my residents are female. I personal feel very discriminated against when a female resident looks at me and states that I can't do my job because I'm a man. Just because my sex is male has nothing to with the type of care that I can provide. What is also upsetting about this discrimination is that it has a nice term called sexism. My facility has two halls front and back. Because of my sex the nursing home has also made the rule that I can't work on the back home because the resident's that stay/live on that hall are more assisted living and are (for the most part) in their right mind. Please let me be clear I get really offended when I'm told I can't give the care that I know I can provide sometimes better than my other co-workers and the resident would still rather have a female CNA. Also, I think it is really upsetting that two males can't be in a resident room at the same time but two females can. This not only applies to the female resident but the males also. And my last item that I would like to be stated is the hall that I work and provide my ADL care contains 24 rooms with 2 bed per room. At the time there are 43/48 of the beds occupied of which 7 are male and the rest (36) are female. Out of 36 females there is only one female resident that I can not preform personal care because she says " I'm a 100 year old grandmother and I need a female to come help me because I'm a 100 year old grandmother and I just can't have a man help me." Again this really hurts my feeling because there are other female residents that ask the nurse to assign me to their section because they state that I make sure they are comfortable and most importantly clean. This brings me finally to the reason for the "I need a female nurse." requirement. These residents were brought up in a different time period and a different set of moral rules that have been enforced upon them by their parents and the society they enteracted with. And during that time it was unheard of for a male nurse doctor or otherwise to see them without clothes. Majority of the time if there was a feminine problem that required attention, females would usually go to their midwife. Which in the old days was usually the doctors wife. I know that most people are thinking that whenever you see a movie based in the late 1800's/ early to mid 1900's if the wife needed to give birth a doctor was called but if we would stop and really think about it. We learned in history that men had doctors and women had mid-wife's; however, exceptions were made if the conditon of the female was beyond the care the mid-wife could provide. So because these elderly women are set in their ways, they have the right to refuse care. And even though there have been some horrible, horrible, horrible cases of male nurse/femmale patient abuse. There are just as many female nurse/ female patient abuse. If a person would require proof of this google cna/nurse abuse on patients. As a result of federal laws stating that residents have the right to refuse care. I think that this law falls under the restraint-free laws that state a resident can not be subjected to any type of restraint (even when there is total justification based on the evaluation of the individual for example: I have a resident that constantly is comming out of her chair and hurting herself (the last incident she pushed herself onto the floor busted her hed wide open and had to receive 8 staples) when resident returned from hospital I requested to put a belt on her scoot chair to prevent the event from re-occuring. When I bluntly told no I had to know why and the response was that federal law states residents have the right to fall.) While I do understand that restraints can be a type of abuse if the standard rule of 15 min out of the restraint for every two hours on the restraint and the unthinkable because some cna/nurses would restrain a resident because they didn't want "deal with them" but because of this rare occurence other residents health is not as safe as it could be. My point is that because of the residents right to be able to refuse care the administrator, DON's and ADON's do not have any other choice but to side with the resident because some law somewhere down the line of the millions of laws that we have to abide by state that my right do not equal to the right of the resident. It is not at all fair, its unjustified, and degrading. But because people would rather enforce something that does not even remotely have any affect on them (THIS DEFINATELY APPLIES ON SO MANY DIFFERENT LEVELS) the minority has to suffer. So just so that majority (no all) of the male cna's can relate to me and hopefully consider the advise that I'm about to offer on how to approach this situation I am 22 years old, gay, and have a fiance that is totally freaked out about some of the stories I could tell him L.O.L. The next time a female resident ask for a female to provide care try and talk to them about this. Ask them why they require a female nurse. Re-assure the resident that the care you can provide has nothing to do with being male. Ask if there was anything that can be done to make the resident more comfortable ( for instance Several of the ladies that I help provide care, we have come to an agreement that I could assist with care as long as something was always covering the resident and minimal exposre as possible. The way this is enforced is if they require incontinet briefs or diapers that gets done instantly. Then pants sock and shoes are put on. When time to put something over the torso I help the resident remove the sleeves from each arm one at a time while still tied at the neck the the gown is untied from the back while the resident keeps the gown covering her by folding her arms across the gown. while the resident is still laying in the bed we proceed to put her top on by putting the sleves on fisrt then pulling over her head (only do this if the resident is fully capable of lifting their arms at least eye level.) Once the shirt is fully covering her torso you can remove the gown with minimal exposure. However, if the resident still request a female ask a female to assist in care. Usually female patients are o.k. with you helping provide care as long as a female is in the room also. In rare cases the female residents will still tell the male care provider to leave the room. If you have tried everything to make the resident comfortable and still the resident request a female only. Just be polite and excuse yourself. The main thing is that if you are new to the nursing home male or female you are going to have to gaing the resident's trust. If you fail to do this you will soon hate working there because them old women that still have their mind and ability to talk to your boss can ruin your reputation and your career. If you are not comfortable providing care to a resident get someone to help you don't pass your resident off on someone else it shows really poor work ethic and gives the impression that you are looking for an easy way out. Another approach to this would be talk to your co-worker and nurse about maybe trading one resident for another but make sure you have a justified answer otherwise going to look and feel really foolish. Always remember to cover yourself when you work. People can be cruel and this expecially applies to the elderly because again they don't have anything better to do if you have given them a reason to dislike you (sometimes you can tell them "Hey sweetie your looking pretty today. if they dislike you they might go to the DON and report that they asked you to help them go to the bathroom and you replied go in your diaper that's what its there for. *really Happend to a co-worker* but if the resident was in the hallway and your nurse/co-worker heard what was said because was openly said no retaliation to you will happen from management. Nurses (all types) takes a special person and this is not a life skill that everyone can do, and find the pleasure of knowing that every time you go into work you have made a difference in someone's life. And even though it goes often un noticed you can look at a resident you just helped and they have a smile and tears in their eyes because they didn't know what they were going to do if you hadn't come along. And even know you'll be doing the same thing agian in 5 minutes for the next four hours untill you want to castrate the inventor of the call light. Its all worth it because no matter what if its a good night that flows smoothly or one that chaotic. They are going to keep you on your toes, teach you things that you will probably forget in five minutes, tell you a story that they just told you five minutes ago and you act the way you did the first time you head it 5 months ago, and your thinking about a hundred different things that you are required to have done five minutes ago, but still stop to listen because after a while if this is truely where your heart is... other people notice and have to hear about how wonderful the CNA on a different shift is compared to the people they have to put up with on their shift and how the resident can't wait for you to come back. And so this is what I had to say. Hopefully someone can benefit from the information that I have been able to require and hopefully for the people that are just in this field for the money will take what I have had to say about the joy's of the job that make up for everything else that can happen. Best of luck to anyone in this field of health because we have to put up with more non-sense than a mojority of people have to in their field of work (I think nurses are right under fast food workers that have to put up with people's bull crap *just my opionion from personal experience*) And to the bewilderment of your friends that you have shared what you thought was a funny story but made them sick to their stomach because they said was cruel and unusual punnishment and jokingly state for you to seek psychological evaluation. keep coming back for more because there is no greater feeling than know you don't have to wonder if you made a difference in someone's life.

yes there is a such thing as being black listed... it causes you to lose your certification and you can no longer work in the healthcare field. the causes of this is usually the result of abuse or neglect of a resident in your ltc employer. the website to check this is https://ph.state.al.us/nurseaideregistry/ this is for the state of alabama only. if you want to find the abuse list or blacklist for your state go to google.com and searc *state* cna list and it will give you a list of results. the list is usually in the state department of safty.