Melanie28

In the LTC facility where I work as a Unit Coordinator the MD has to sign each individual ORDER that is written and there is a last page for him to sign, along with the unit coordinator. Most of the MD's make rounds at least once a month or more often but some only come in every three months to do rounds and they may have 20-30 PAGES of individual orders to sign off. I have worked in a facility where the doc only had to sign the bottom of the order page but where I work now they say the MD must sign each order written that the state requires it due to medicaid/medicare guidlines.

I work in a nursing home and we usually get over the board raises. A whole 25 cents!!! We are pretty lucky that we aren't understaffed, which is very unusual being a nursing home. We would all have strokes if they gave us $1.25 and hour more. [This message has been edited by Melanie28 (edited February 28, 2001).]

I have been an LPN for almost 7 years and I've worked at 3 different facilities with the same company and it really is the same where ever you go. We are told that we are the "charge nurse" and we have the responsibilty to supervise the CNA's to make sure their doing their jobs and for the most part there are some excellant cna's, who you dont even have to tell what to do, they just know their business and they take very good care of their residents. But there are some who are just not going to work no matter what. And when you tell/ask them to do a specific duty they back talk and mouth off, stomp around, cuss and whatever. Then as charge nurses when we do write them up they are in the DON's office crying that the LPN was being mean or unfair and nothing is done to them, that's just telling them and others that they can get away with anything and it causes the senior cnas to be resentful because their working their butts off and so and so does whatever he/she pleases. This has happened alot at one facility where I worked. Writing cnas up didn't do any good whatsoever. We were told that we had to take charge but we didn't have any authority. The cna's would just joke about how many times they had been written up and this made the LPN's look like jokes. I know that this was the DON's fault because she didn't back the LPN's up. Even after getting a new DON the same thing would happen because the cna's were used to getting their way. There were even cna's who were fired and would be rehired a couple of weeks later, just to go back to doing the same old thing. It got to where the LPN's wouldn't even bother to say anything anymore. We had it so bad there for a while that tires were slashed in the parking lot, cars were keyed, cna's would accuse fellow cna's who they didn't like personally of abuse of a resident, which the administrator had to report and invesigate. I was in 2 state investigations because of a cna telling that she saw/heard someone abusing a resident. Several people knew that the situation never took place. It was just someone out to get them because they didn't like her. That cna is now an LPN at the same facility. I dont know what the deal there was but the cna's were definately running the facility, and from what I hear they still are. I have heard so many gripes and complaints from cna's that they have so much to do so little time nothing to work with and so little pay. Not all cna's do this but many do. I just cant feel sorry for them who do that. No one is putting a gun to their heads making them work in a nursing home. They dont have to be cna's. As miserable as some of them are to hear them tell it I wonder why they just keep on. It is an extremely hard job and stressful physically and emotionally. There are people who handle it very well though and go above and beyond the call of duty. I put the blame on the DON and the Administrators who cannot take charge of their positions and weed out the people they let get by with running the facility. The main ones though, the only ones who count in all of this are the ones who suffer most and that's the residents.