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

[downsouthlaff]

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.

[gochicagobears]

That's why I quit LTC and went to home health. It's not fair to the aides or residents to have one person caring for all those people at once. And for all the aides that are more experienced than you to be acting all high and mighty like they are perfect and just because you refuse to throw a 200lb person from the chair to the bed by yourself makes you lazy..... I Just don't understand. Put two people on a hallway and MAYBE then the residents will get the care and compassion they deserve and that we aides want to give.

[gochicagobears]

Woah! I started at 9. the people that had been there 5 years made 10+

[gochicagobears]

YESSSS. If everyone would just HELP each other instead of refusing and just doing their own thing and leaving you out to dry.....

[slilly]

I can totally relate to this schedule of having to do things on time, since I did assisted living, but the nice thing about my job is that vitals are done on the 7p-7a shift for when I get on so I make copies for my nurse and the incoming doctor. As far as doing shaving on male patients before breakfast, we usually serve breakfast at 7:40ish....then start our showers and care. I remember used to having to get patients/residents out of bed at like 7:15 and getting them up to the dining room before kitchen made a fuss over not having everybody up there on time. I found one patient in a bed of another patient and they had made a huge mess all over, and the head nurse looked at the med tech and said well you gotta clean this up cause you aren't serving breakfast. I get paid $12 an hour because I am a CNA 2, but I do remember a long term care place that hired anybody off the street and gave all patient care team minimum wage.