Work Place Abuse- My experience with 33 patients Rant/Venting

[CNAEdd29]

I've had some bad experiences working on floors by myself. But not as bad as working with 33 PATIENTS by myself. not only it's dangerous to me but it's dangerous to the patients. Why, people will call, nurses may call, anything can happen. What's worse is that I didn't have time to talk to any on my patients. I had to tell them that i had the whole floor to myself. i didn't have a choice. I had many incontinent patients as well as a fall risk. Oh, not to mention feeders. I had to do it all by myself. I couldn't even feed all of them at once. Hey, my hands were tied! What could I do? Some nurses helped , but it was still bad. I even had another admission, and no one even cared. i did all the vitals by myself. And baths? I couldn't do it. I didn't have enough time for everyone. I was too busy cleaning poopy diapers and watching some patients because they were fall risks. And personally, I didn't want to either. It was just too much.

Why am I sharing this? Because I want people to be aware that workplace abuse in healthcare is serious. It's no joking matter, and people like the nursing supervisors don't give a crap. They don't understand that this is DANGEROUS to everyone. And the worse part is, if anything bad happens, the CNAs are the one to pay. Yes, everyone takes the blame, but more towards us because we don't have a "degree".You think I'm joking? I've had experiences where nurses push me around and say "that's not my job". So, is there anything we can do about that?

Here's what i'm going to do. Since I'm going back to be a CNA, I'm sure it will happen to be again. And if and when it does, I will do these things.

1. Tell the charge nurse that I need another CNA. Based on the "Don't be that nurse" post I posted and what some nurses said, some nurses don't give a ****. They won't help, and hey, there's nothing i can do about it. So, if I get word that I'm by myself, I will ask the charge nurse if they do something about it. If not, fine. here's option two.

2. i will personally pick up the phone and call the nursing supervisor. I won't call MY boss because i feel they will make a few phone calls, but not take it seriously, but the head boss. I will call and advise seriously to bring another CNA to the floor. If they can't do anything about if, or if there going to be dicks about it and not give a crap, fine. Option three.

3. I will stay, because if i walk out, I will loose my job, and I got bills to pay :). So, I will give a word of caution to the charge nurse, and all of my nurses, and tell them that since I'm here by myself, I need your help. I'm not a person who asks for help a lot since I could do most things on my own, but teamwork is a MUST. If that doesn't work, or if something happens to a patient and they blame it on me, then I will have no choice but to resort to this final option.

4. Write an incident report, request to talk to whoever is in charge if nursing, and explain my situation , and about the abuse of workers like us. It's not right, and I would like to make sure that everyone is accountable, not just me. It's not fair to those who work hard but get in trouble. If they don't listen, and they think it's a joke, fine. I will either do this every time I'm in another floor, or I will do legal action If I can do that, if they push me, and sees where that goes.

Look, no CNA should ever be in a situation where there hands are tied to everyone. That's what I learned. To the CNAs out there tell me an experience you had like this and tell me what would you do in a situation that I had.

To the nurses, I know some are going to be smart and play that "education" card, and that's fine. But please be respectful, because you know what we have to go through on our jobs on a daily bases. If your're going to be a jerk, then you've proven my point.

Thank you.