What Do You Think?????

[clorinda]

hi I'm new here but have been reading every ones post for all long time. I'm also in longterm care, most days I love it. I just changed jobs and wanted to know what every one thought about the 7p-7a nurse waking up residents at 4 am to give all of there routine am meds. this came about because the two nurses on this unit will not give meds and the cmt said it was too much work for her. we have 49 residents on this unit. we work 12 hr shifts. The 7p nurse is having to awken 15 residents every morning at 4 am to give any where from 5-20 routine meds that were being given at 7,8 or 9 am. these residents are being awaken enough, besides that many meds on an empty stomch? also what is every ones thought on an lpn working as a cna. several times a week we have a lpn that works passing meds from 7p to 10pm. Then she has to go the floor to work as a cna till 7am. she has her own group for 8 hours and gets her 6 residents up in the morning just like the cna. we are all protesting. not that is has helped, but several nurses quit and new hires leave. the nurses left are looking, including me. we all feel that it is only right to help answer lights and such as time permits. however we feel we went to nursing school to be a nurse. administration is telling us that we are still making the same amount of money just do what we are told if we want to keep our jobs. would appreciate your thoughts.

[Blackcat99]

That's encouraging that there is going to be a meeting. Good luck. Most LTC's don't care about quality of life issues like sleep. When I worked LTC on nights they had scheduled many dressings, skin checks,G-tube meds and other meds to be done on night shift. I finally left because they just kept adding more and more everyday for the night shift to do. :angryfire And then they complained "Why can't we find any nurses to work night shift?" :angryfire