Stress of being an LTC aide CNA just too great for the pay!

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Specializes in Nursing Home.

8.50 an hour

$340 dollars a week

$1300.00 a month after taxes

6am-7am

30 residents on the hall. 12 got to be up for breakfast and in the dining room by 7. All men must be shaved all beds must be made. Nails must be cut. It's 7:05 am and 3 residents are still in bed because Mr Jones with dementia is beating the tar out of you while your trying to shave him. You finallyake it in the dining room at 7:10 and the nurse wants to write you up and chews you out because your 10 minutes late for tray pass. At 7:30 am you bring maw maw with dementia in because she can't feed herself you try to feed her and she just will not open her mouth. You try to leave with her and your getting fussed because she needs to eat. So you sit for an hour and a half til the nurse finally gets it... She's not going to eat.

8am-9am

Bring all residents back from the dining room. To the day room. Vitals are due at 9:00 to nurse. There's 19 residents in vitals today. You try to take your vitals but Mr Jones is in activities Ms Smith is in therapy. Ms. Johnson is out on pass.'until you manage to get 3 of 19 done. 8:58 am the nurse is raising Gaines because her vitals are not nearly complete.

Now residents are calling and complaining because there is no Ice in there pitcher but bed baths on bed bounds must be done by 11 before lunch. On your way to your bed bound residents ms smith calls to go to the restroom. When you get her in there you realize that she got feces all over herself and now you spend 25 minutes cleaning and changing her. Now you are on your way to do your bedbaths but it's 10:55am and you realize that they just paged over head for all CNAs to help seve in the dining room. You finish at 12:30. Now residents have to go down for a nap. Them you take your lunch break til 1. You come back at 1 to make your last round and before you can start we have a new admission coming in and were gonna need vitals weight and to assist the nurse with the skin assessment. Now it's 1:30 pm and we make our last round. Now it's 1:55pm the shifts over in 5 minutes and there's 30 ADL flow sheets I&Os hydration sheets, CNA charting, and bowel and bladder sheets to be completed. And now the Activity Director is standing in the hallway agitated because me johns call light has been I'm for the past 20 minutes but you didn't realize It because for the past 20 minutes you were cleaning BM off a lady that had diarrhea from her lower back up to her hair.

All this day in day out for $1300 a month. Some CNAs make much much less.

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Specializes in Nursing Home.

The cold hard fact of the nursing home is this

Nurses: are seen as highly regarded professionals who can do no wrong, and are above everybody in the facility.

Aides/CNAs:although certified/licensed/state tested as required by every state are seen as lazy uneducated uncaring employees who must be supervised like children and is below everyone else and must take lip from housekeeping, dietary, maintenance, front office, and must take lip from people who were never certified and never worked a day in there life as an aide but yet they know how to take care of residents better than you do, and stereotype you as lazy.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Cardiology..

Sigh. I make 9.50/hour. Today I did the work of two caregivers because the new girl working due stairs didn't know how to do things and wasn't trained correctly.

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I'm new to being a cna. Joined this site today, and I know how you guys feel. Had a list of all two assist today (not my usual list mind you) changed and clothed as many as I could, then for two hours was asking for help to get everyone out of bed for dinner, and showers. It was ether "ask someone else" or "I'm not doing that ****" exact words from the other cnas. Then dinner came and the higher up screamed at me for not having everyone up called me lazy, and that I should quit. Took my 15 which was really only 10 came back up and they were up by then don't know who got them out of bed, but two minutes later got called down stairs main admin. wanted to write me up for not taking care of my residents because they were not showered or out of bed. So I pleaded my case I got "I wont write you up this time but i'll be watching you learn to do your job and buck up".. What a night!

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LTC work is the hardest work for a CNA.

Do you work with 30 residence by yourself on 1st shift? That is way way too many and totally unrealistic. If this is what you are doing I would run for the hills and find another job.

Don't be too hard on the nurses. LTC is a very hard job for them as well. They are in charge of the entire facility, and they have their own time restants. Passing meds by a certain time does not always happen either, and even though I don't like the thought of nurses yelling at CNAs, and I feel they need more compassion sometimes, the stress of it all gets to them sometimes. Remember not to judge untill you work in someone elses shoes.

Though I am 100% with you on house keeping not trying to tell you how to do your job. That is totally uncalled for. If I'd have house keeping trying to tell me how to take care of the residence I'd remind her that is out of her scope for her job, and tell her room 1 needs dusting.

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Specializes in Nursing Home.

1 hall has about 32 residents about 16 of those are total care and about 10 are bed bound. About 5 do for themselves. We have one LPN nurse per hall and 2 CNAs per Nurse. So 2 CNAs per hall.

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In OR the maximum residents per CNA is 7, and our minimum state wage is $8.75, and CNA's make a few dollars per hour more than this, so it varies a ton by state. Maybe you need to move...

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1 hall has about 32 residents about 16 of those are total care and about 10 are bed bound. About 5 do for themselves. We have one LPN nurse per hall and 2 CNAs per Nurse. So 2 CNAs per hall.

so it seems that you have at least 15 residence that you are taking care of at a time. Still seems pretty high for 1st shift. Not unheard of, but definetly towards the max for first shift. so I can understand how burned out and overwelmed you are. And 32 residence for your nurse is an overweling number as well with all the duties that she has. So I can understand how stress out all the workers at this facility can be, and why this is not a happy place to work.

I think maybe it would be wise if you would just look around at other options in your area. There might be a CNA job that will be a whole lot better for you, and you could be happier and not so stressed out

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Specializes in hospice.

This is why, unless my family were going to starve to death, I swore I would never work LTC and I haven't yet. Look around. There are better situations. Find one! People talk about hospital jobs like they are the end-all be-all of existence, best jobs out there. I bailed on my hospital job (which was my first one out of school) after 7 months. My patient ratio was about the same as yours and high acuity. I worked telemetry. Blech. I am so much happier in my hospice inpatient job. I'm not expected to do the work of three people and the nurses actually HELP with patient care. It would take a lot to get me to leave this company, especially as they'll pay for my nursing education. But it's more than that. I feel like I am actually respected and valued here, by both immediate coworkers and supervisors higher up the chain. They pay more per hour than any other employer hiring CNAs that I know of in my area, and I have achieved a pretty good work-life balance even working full time. I gotta tell ya, 12 hour shifts are the BOMB. I work 3 days a week and yet it's full time. I don't think I could ever bring myself to work 8s. So look around. There may be a great job waiting for you somewhere, and since you have experience, you're already over the first hurdle.

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I'd high tail it out of there ASAP.

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Specializes in ER, Med-surg.

Now that you have experience, consider the hospital or hospice care. It's a different world entirely. God bless those CNA's that are willing to deal with LTC facilities, I don't think that I could ever do that again. Awful work environments and the good ones are few and far between.

At my hospital job day shift does all baths, but most patients do self care or simply need to be set up. I'll have 2 maybe 3 total care on a shift. Baths are offered daily but patients will often refuse a bath if they had one the day before. Vitals machines are well cared for and make taking vitals a quick little task, not some gigantic hump that takes 3 hours to get over with manual BP cuffs that don't work.

I am respected on my job, my input and observations matter and I am an important part of a caring team. I am in love with my workplace! I can't say I felt that way when working LTC.

How many months of experience do you have? It may be time for you to kiss long term care good bye.

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downsouthlaff question for you: Did I understand you correctly ? Are you saying that your responsible for 30 residents ? (One CNA) for 30 residents ?

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