I'm sure everyone is tired of my venting already, but I don't have anywhere else to talk about this and I feel like I'm about to hit my breaking point. I've been back at the nursing home for over a month now and things aren't getting much better.
They put me back in the dementia unit and I am constantly getting picked on for being slower than the other aides (who have been there for years on end, mind you) and for spending too much time with the residents. My partner told me that I'm basically just supposed to go in their room, wipe their butt, and leave, and spend no more than 5 minutes tops. If I take a few extra moments to brush a resident's teeth or rub lotion on them, I am yelled at for "spending too much time on one patient." So, I stopped doing that and ever since have focused on only doing the bare minimum. Ever since she first complained, I tried REALLY hard to get my speed down and work as fast as humanly possible. Last night, I went into a resident's room to put her to bed; transferred her out of her wheelchair, cleaned her and changed her diaper, and put on a nightgown. This took no more than 5-10 minutes; 15 minutes TOPS. Yet, when I come out, the aide is STILL all "Still taking so long with the residents, I see?" Um, am I alone in thinking that 10 minutes in a resident's room to put them to bed is NOT that ridiculous? I mean, what more am I supposed to do? Then she criticizes me for being in a rush or missing some small step, well what do you expect to happen when you constantly get onto someone for taking so long?
I find working in this place just plain depressing. It's like most of the aides don't even view these residents as human beings, just as part of an assembly line. I see these aides routinely yell at the residents, throw them around, hit them, dry-shave them, I have even witnessed an aide threaten to break a resident's fingers. You might ask, why don't I report these aides for the things they do? Because these aides have been there for years on end and are supposedly the GOOD ones. All I have to say is... if this is what a good aide is, I don't even want to know what a bad one is like. If I tried to report them or get them in trouble, I'm sure I'd wind up being laughed out the building and the one retaliated against.
It's to the point where I feel like nothing I do is good enough, the thought of even going into work makes me sick and on top of that I am being seriously overworked. I have a fast food job that I work in the daytime and leaving that job just to go straight to the nursing home almost everyday is taking its toll on me mentally and emotionally. It doesn't help that I already suffer from major depression and have had to deal with several recent losses in the family. I want nothing more than to run far, far away from this place and never look back, but I can't. Why? Because I already did that once before, when I got hired at the group home and then they laid me off, so I re-applied to this place. The DoN reluctantly took me back when I told her I wouldn't just abruptly leave this time, I would stick it out. I can't leave again without looking REALLY bad. So basically, I'm stuck here now, no matter how miserable it makes me or how much I want out.
By the way, I don't know if I ever mentioned this before but the group home job actually called me a week after they laid me off to tell me they still wanted me to work PRN. This was after I'd already re-applied to the nursing home. So if I did leave this place, it's not like I'd be out a job: I'd still have my fast food job, and being PRN at the group home. But I'm still stuck because I made a promise to the DoN that I wouldn't leave. I wish to God I had never agreed to go back in the first place. I remember now, there was a reason I ran away from this place.
I mean, am I just being melodramatic here? In thinking that there's something inherently wrong in all this, that you're supposed to get in and out of a resident's room ASAP and giving them a little extra attention, brushing their teeth, etc. is considered an error on your part? I mean, I can understand if you're pressed for time or have something else that needs to be done, but if there IS time, I don't see the harm in spending a little extra time with the residents. Especially in the dementia unit, where we usually finish all our work at 8 and so there's just like 2 hours to do nothing but sit around basically, until we do our final rounds. I just don't know.
