Where do they find these caregivers?

[Blackcat99]

I have just started a new job at an assisted living facility.:angryfire Do they only hire totally untrained staff or what? We usually only have 4-6 patients that have to have vital signs done. The aides tell me things like " I didn't know I was suppose to take a pulse too. I didn't know I was suppose to take a temperature too. Yesterday, I tried to give a 5 minute inservice about vital signs. I was verbally attacked before I could finish my inservice. I was told by the aide that she was very busy and couldn't get vital signs done by 11am. This aide expects all the nurses to "beg her over and over to get the vital signs done" I'm not going to play this game with her. I finally got angry and told her that I was going to write her up if vital signs were not done by 11am. Everyone else is able to get their vital signs done by 11am. What is wrong with these people anyway?:trout:

[Blackcat99]

I have learned that my facility hires people with absolutely no prior caregiving experience on a regular basis!!!!!:angryfire They don't want to hire any experienced CNA's because those CNA's would not settle for minimum wage.

Good grief! No wonder they don't know anything about taking vital signs. They are working the floor without any kind of training first!!!

[RosesrReder, BSN, MSN, RN]

I have learned that my facility hires people with absolutely no prior caregiving experience on a regular basis!!!!!:angryfire They don't want to hire any experienced CNA's because those CNA's would not settle for minimum wage.

Good grief! No wonder they don't know anything about taking vital signs. They are working the floor without any kind of training first!!!

Makes no sense. So what use are they to the team?

[nightmare, RN]

All our carers come in straight off the street so to speak unless they have prior experience somewhere else.We have to train them from scratch and that is not always easy.When they do their SVQ 2or3 then they can be senior carers and go on to doing more complex things like BP's etc.If we do not happen to have any senior carers on duty then the RN's do all the Obs/dressings etc.

[BoopetteRN]

I am currently the in-service director at my facility. Human resources have taken over the hiring for our facility and the people they hire are so scary. We are the county facility and years ago, the DON hired the nurses and CNAs, but for the past year, HR has. I conduct orientation weekly and sometimes that is for a party of one. Orientation is a 2-day process: the first day is all videos, two PowerPoint's, and the 2nd day they spend with me covering policies and actually go down to a unit and do hoyer lifts and transfers. I want to pull my hair out by the end of the 2nd day because some of them do not have a clue and they are supposedly experienced. I am constantly doing mini in-services for staff when problems arise, and frankly sometimes, I just do not understand how come they do not already know this stuff, but I try to maintain my cool and educate.

[catlvr]

In Pennsylvania, most LTC has certified nurses aidse. Often, they come enter the profession from the Welfare to Work program. The attitude of some caregivers seems to be that they used to get a check for doing nothing, and they still want the same - they do not wish to work. Please understand, I am NOT saying this is true of all aides, nor all those who went thru the WFW program! But if you are not used to having to work and really don't want to, then it must really stink to have be paid crappy wages for what really is very hard work. I know that I could not be an aide - I am not physically strong enough to be rolling and moving patients all day. My hat is off to good aides. And for those aides who don't care for what they are doing, they should find another job. Nursing can be a wonderful profession of you care, and a horror if you don't. I'm still a student, but this is what I have observed.

e

[smk1, LPN]

What is keeping her from getting her vitals done on time? Tell her to prioritize and get those vitals in before doing anything else. Also make sure that if the Aides are making up there own assingments that they are fair and balanced. I once worked at an ALF and the adminstration tried to keep or allow in residents who were NOT Alf material. If you have a totally blind person who needs help to the bathroom or depends changed ever 2 hours, bathed and dressed everyday and someone to feed him... that is not really "assistance" that is total care and I as a CNA was irritated because if I wanted patients like that and worse, then I would have worked at a nursing home and got paid more to deal with that. We had patients who were clearly advancing in their alzheimers that would try to get out of the building, would walk into other peoples rooms and start trouble, people who though you job was to sit and organize records with them in their room for hours etc... So if this is going on, then yes I can see her not getting her job done on time, however this is where prioritization comes in. Are the aides working as a team? Could she use some time saving tricks? Sadly she may just be a horrible person and a bad aide in which case, document and report as often as you need to because noone needs someone who can't pull their own weight.