Kitsey

Um...no. I am a CNA and do not feel I need to be included on a forum for nurses. I am not a nurse. Not to be rude to anyone (and again, I AM a CNA) but we don't really have to know much at all to pass the simple tests to earn our certification. Nurses go through hell to earn their degrees. And I in no way feel like we are the backbone of nursing. O-o

If you work the holiday you get double time and a half. If you don't work it, you get paid based on your status. Full timers get paid 8 hours, 3/4 timers get 6 hours, 1/2 timers get 4 hours, etc.

I carry my phone because I use it instead of a watch. I suppose my LTC has no good staff then because all of us, including the nurses, have their phones on them. Today I used it to take photos of the baby birds outside our unit to show the residents who can't see up into the nest. The residents and their families enjoyed seeing that. As for vitals, I never asked why we don't. I was surprised when I started because during clinicals we of course took vitals quite often.

Nope, in my LTC we do not take vitals. I carry my phone, but I am not supposed too :*

Yup, our new plan is to go around with the nurse at bedcheck and just pick everyone up off the floor and tuck them back into bed right before nightshift comes. Also considering buying everyone those socks with little jingle bells on them, you know...as Christmas gifts... (I do hope everyone can note my sarcasm...)

lol-this is us just about every day. 1 dementia unit. 2 1:1's, and 3 aides. You do the math!

We are going through this at my facility as we speak. The goal is to be alarm free by the new year. They have started taking away alarms from the ones who are less of a risk. Now we have residents getting up and self transferring because we have no warning. I've worked with one woman for over 3.5 years and in that time she hasn't fallen once. Welp, guess who fell 2 weeks ago? Wonder how long she was on the floor before rounds were done and she was found? What we are being told, is that State knows and expects falls to increase...BUT, the facility will be fined less for those falls. And yes I am being serious. So I guess it doesn't matter that we are going to have a ton more falls, just as long as it costs the facility less. We are constantly running short, there is no way in hell we will be able to keep an eye on everyone. We *run* for alarms multiple times a shift, and have prevented many a fall because of it. Now I guess we'll just call the nurse to come asses everyone before we scoop them off the floor again.

We do have one of those residents in my nursing home. They are a family full of nurses who feel the need to police us daily. Nothing is good enough for them and we hear about it all the time. We are to do what they want, when they want it no matter if it means making others wait.

Wow-at my facility if you are mandated, you are not able to be mandated again for 3 months. My facility does not have my cell phone number, and my home phone has caller id. If I don't want to work I simply don't even answer the phone. If I am already there and they need somone, a simple (and firm) "No, thanks!" is all they need. If a supervisor hears even a tiny bit of 'caving in' in your voice, they see that as a "yes, I'll stay."

I work in the dementia/Alzheimer unit of a LTCF. The resident doesn't really even seem to know what we are doing. The one I was speaking of would not be able to hold a walker, his hands are contracted and he isn't able to understand us telling him to hold onto one. The other resident who is the main cause of the pain is also care planned as a stand. His family is rather...unaccepting... of his illness and shows up near daily on am and pm shifts. Once 3 people LIFT him into a standing position, he lifts his feet and tries to throw the walker out in front of him, he doesn't understand. But...if we do not go up and down that hall 2 to 3 times, his family complains and we get chewed out. Did I mention this is to be done every 2 hours? I understand how crazy this sounds, I really do. I just do as I am told :/

I use the lifts and stands, but that doesn't help when you are told you MUST walk certain residents, even if 'walking' them means 3 aides holding them up and dragging them down the hall. One of my residents is care planned as an Arjo out of bed, and a stand into bed. But we still have to walk him. O-o That is where my broken back comes from

I am in Western Wisconsin. Not sure about Medication Aides, my experience is limited to a single LTCF.

CNAs don't take vitals at my facility and we did not learn to take blood pressure in my class. I asked why we would not be learning that skill and the instructor said that since we don't take vitals on the job, they don't bother teaching it any more. Every once in a while I might grab a temp, but other than that, nothing. The nurses do vitals weekly I believe.

I would say yes, that is how it really is. Sometimes you just have to use what you've got (and I am not saying this is RIGHT, but I am saying this does happen in real life). In my unit we haven't had any male body wash to stock rooms all week, so we have been using baby shampoo or even hand soap, because that is ALL we have. Our facility doesn't even have conditioner, we aides buy it with our own money for the few residents with longer hair. You will see a lot of the 'just get it done' attitude because most of the time we are so rushed and frazzled we simply don't have time to do things the way they should be done. I never thought I could end up this cynical, but 2 years as a CNA in a LTC can totally break you.

My facility in Wisconsin also doesn't care if we have it or not.

Everyone I know dreads them. If students are around we need to do things more 'by the book' rather than how things are actually done in real life. We had a group of students a few months ago and a few were a nightmare. They were reporting each other left and right, reporting the CNAs left and right and just making themselves a complete nuisance. The rest of the students were ok, but the instructor was horrible. She took it upon herself to walk around with a clipboard and tell the working CNA's what they were doing wrong. We were told we needed EIGHT washcloths for pericare. I still don't know how I would possibly use that many. Facility policy is 4. She told us we bathed people incorrectly, even that we put briefs on the wrong way. Everyone groaned when they learned they were 'stuck with' the students that day. One big issue we had is that the students didn't seem to understand we had to get our work done. We don't have an hour and a half to try and coax a resident to eat their supper one pea at a time. I know that sounds cold but it is true. One day I had gotten 4 people in bed after supper and the student was still trying to force one man to eat. We even had a group of 3 of them stand and watch while one of our aides got the crap beaten out of her during a shower, and no one even tried to help. I understand we were all students, but at my clinicals (at the same facility I now work at) we did not bother the CNAs. We had 'our' resident for the day and that was that. The working aides were not responsible for showing us anything or helping us at all, and we were told that we would see things that were not by the book, but that we were guests at the facility and to not cause any trouble. I do feel sorry for the students because it's obvious we don't want them around, but we aren't being paid any more to deal with all the extra work of having them around. And we aren't showing them the 'real' way of doing things anyway.

Good for you! We have done things like this at my LTC facility and I have never heard or even thought there could be something wrong with doing so. One resident with long hair had literally one single nasty hair tie with a rats nest of hair stuck to it, so I bought her a pack of new brightly colored ones. My coworker and I have also been buying conditioner for another resident for 2 years who still gets her hair dyed cause the facility only provides shampoo. My coworker also bought 5 or 6 pairs of fancy grippers for a resident with no family because she was just being left with her toes sticking out of her ted hose and she was always cold. I see nothing wrong with it, just slip things into their room and don't make a big deal of it.

Wish I knew. I've been a CNA for only 2 years and some mornings I can barely get out of bed because my feet have hurt since I started. Can't remember the last time my back didn't hurt either. My coworkers are great, we all work together and try to help where we can. Like right now one of my coworkers has torn ligaments in her shoulder from work, so we make sure she doesn't have to lift on that side. We all hurt daily unfortunately and carry a plethora of over the counter meds and muscle rub. For the days when your back hurts so badly that you can't put your hair in a ponytail, I recommend Vicodin

I'm a CNA in the dementia unit of an LTCF and I can't imagine behaving this way towards my nurse. I would expect to be fired for yelling at a nurse-no question. If we are having a slow night and have the time to sit around and chat (we would never dare take out our phones!) our nurse finds us something to do. There are lifts and stands to be sanitized, baseboards and doorknobs to be washed, rooms to be straightened...always something to do! If you don't want a chore to be found for you, you keep your butt busy. The way they look at it is, if 4 aids have all this free time, then management will decide we don't need 4 aides and cut a position. A lot of aides don't like working with my nurse because of these things, but she is respected and she is the first to stand up for her aides if we need it. To me, if I find a nurse doing something that is 'my' job because I am busy with something else, I am almost ashamed because she is taking time away from her job to help me.

My class ended in the beginning of November and I took my test the following January 3rd. I didn't crack my book the entire time and had no trouble whatsoever with the written portion. I focused all my studying on the skills portion.

Still not on there? I tested in WI through Pearson Vue and was on the registry the next day...

Have you looked here? Pearson VUE: Choose your state then scroll down and click 'search nurse aide registry.

Well-I think your mistake was telling the night nurse to have the night CNA do it because you had been waiting 30 minutes...If a nurse asks me to go do something-whether it's an am, pm, or noc-I go and do it. I would *never* dream of talking back like that... Sure the nurses should have helped the resident and not made him wait, but it doesn't help anyone for you to get an attitude about it. I am pretty sure if my PM nurse heard me talking like that she would have my hide.

I don't remember if I was asked about having kids or not, but at my LTCF full-timers work every other weekend, while part timers work two weekends on, one weeknd off.

I can't speak from personal experience, but my coworkers who have been/are pregnant work right up until their due date. In fact, one of my coworkers is due this Friday and she is scheduled for work Thursday.