I hate my job (CNA in a nursing home)

Plot Device · Sep 29, 2011

I just started as a nursing assistant in a nursing home a few weeks ago. I absolutely hate it. I love these old people, but the workload is too much. There needs to be at least 50% more nursing aids on the clock than what this place is willing to pay for. As far as HOW the work actually gets done ... there is the "legal" way to administer care as mandated by law, and then the expected way to try and get it done in time. And then at the end of your shift, you sit down and fill out paperwork where you check off a hundred little boxes where you CLAIM you performed certain types of care upon people. But you didn't. Nobody did.

I have been told by loads of other nursing aids in real life an on the internet that this is all pretty standard. And right now there are efforts to force nursing homes by law to have a minimum number of nursing aids on the clock with a standard ration of patients to nursing aids. And there are businessmen fighting it saying it would cause an "undue burden" upon the nursing facilities to mandate all those "extra" people on the clock. But I say the patients are being unduly burdened by being forced to wait 20 minutes straight for someone to answer their request to take them to the bathroom.

Don't ever put yourself or one of your loved ones in a nursing home. Even if it's a standard post-operative thing of just a week or so in a nursing home, don't ever do it. Find a way to have a private duty nurse take care of you at your house. Or a family member. But don't ever go to a nursing home. You will be left to sit in your own pee, you will get touched by unwashed hands, you will have your personal clothes ruined, you will have your food messed up. Don't ever go there.

firedrake · Sep 29, 2011

Plot Device said:
Don't ever put yourself or one of your loved ones in a nursing home. Even if it's a standard post-operative thing of just a week or so in a nursing home, don't ever do it. Find a way to have a private duty nurse take care of you at your house. Or a family member. But don't ever go to a nursing home. You will be left to sit in your own pee, you will get touched by unwashed hands, you will have your personal clothes ruined, you will have your food messed up. Don't ever go there.

I work in a residential care home (Admin Assistant). Yes, staff are pushed to the limit but our residents certainly do not suffer the indignities you've highlighted here. In a good home, the residents/patients will always come first, regardless of the mountains of paperwork the staff have to fill in.

Kindly refrain from making blanket assumptions that all Care/Nursing homes are the same.

Thank you.

Plot Device · Sep 30, 2011

Thank you for being the first person on AW to make me cry.

Susan Coffin · Sep 30, 2011

Years ago, I worked as a CNA in a very good nursing home and, despite the work load, I loved it. I was in my twenties and learned so much from the patients and the people who I worked with. To this day, I am still friends with a few coworkers and think often about many others.

A patient named Mrs. Hubensacker once said something that was really not nice. I said very kindly, "Hey, that hurt my feelings." She said, "Well, honey, you shouldn't have had your feelers out there." Pretty soon we were both laughing. She was funny as all get out.

Maybe it's not the work but the particular place? There are some great care homes out there.

Alpha Echo · Sep 30, 2011

I used to have a friend who also worked as a CNA in a nursing home, and she said the same thing - she fell in love with the residents, but the amount of drama and the things she saw while working there tore her apart.

I'm sorry you're dealing with all that.

Alessandra Kelley · Sep 30, 2011

Plot Device, I'm sorry. It sounds like you have a terrible work environment.

Is there anyone you can alert to about these conditions?

Maryn · Sep 30, 2011

Don't ever put yourself or one of your loved ones in a nursing home. Even if it's a standard post-operative thing of just a week or so in a nursing home, don't ever do it. Find a way to have a private duty nurse take care of you at your house. Or a family member. But don't ever go to a nursing home. You will be left to sit in your own pee, you will get touched by unwashed hands, you will have your personal clothes ruined, you will have your food messed up. Don't ever go there.

Plot Device, that tarry brush in your hand is smearing the places which are indeed well-staffed, and at which many of us work or have worked, and where we have placed our loved ones when their needs exceeded our ability to give.

I'm sorry your work environment is awful, but it is absolutely untrue that every place is just like the one at which you work. The two in my city with which I am familiar are well-staffed, available for drop-in visits 24/7, meet or surpass all state and local regulations, and provided compassionate and caring end-of-life care for people I loved. They did not ruin laundry, leave residents untended, or use unsanitary practices. I ate there many times, with pleasure. (Way, way better than hospital food.)

Maryn

mirandashell · Sep 30, 2011

I think maybe Plot is just venting at the moment. Obviously the job is really stressful and everyone needs somewhere they can scream.

Let's go easy, eh?

Maryn · Sep 30, 2011

I understand venting, and do it myself on occasion. But it's not fair to lump every nursing home in the same category as the awful one you know too well. I used to work at [redacted]. It sucked and there were some dishonest practices, but that doesn't mean K-Mart, Kohl's, and Target do that, too, nor that nobody should shop at discount stores ever again. Venting needs to be properly directed at the guilty party, IMO.

I find it almost hurtful considering how very hard some of my father's and my mother-in-law's caregivers worked for minimum wage, and how the OP assumes they did their jobs illegally, checking off that they'd done things they had not, just because her employers expect her to. I cannot thank the staff of those two places enough for giving my loved ones' final years as much warmth, human contact, and dignity as was possible.

Maryn

firedrake · Sep 30, 2011

Maryn;6600751 I find it almost hurtful considering how very hard some of my father's and my mother-in-law's caregivers worked for minimum wage said:
This. Every day I see how hard our care staff work. They're responsible for as many as 8 residents each, quite a few of whom are high dependency. They usually don't leave until well after their shift is finished because they do the paperwork last. We're not talking ticky boxes here, we're talking writing out what their residents weigh, what they've eaten, their meds, any health issues, what's being done to help them, etc. etc. They have to because the Government watchdog for Care/Nursing Homes considers properly completed paperwork as important as the actual 'caring'.

When I see blanket dismissals like the OP's then, yes, I'm going to get very defensive because I'm thinking of what my colleagues do every day, above and beyond, to ensure that the people in their care are treated with dignity, love and respect.

So allow me to vent in defence, eh?

dolores haze · Sep 30, 2011

The nursing home I visit regularly is, sadly, more similar to the one Plot describes than the ones described by Firedrake and Maryn. I've liked every single staff person I've interacted with there, but they're always so busy, so harried, so over-worked that their residents do get neglected. The staff turnover, unsurprisingly, is pretty bad.

mirandashell · Sep 30, 2011

I'm not saying you can't vent, Fire. I'm just saying that Plot most likely didn't mean every single care home. And because your experience is different to hers, you jumped on her.

I'm just asking for a little slack cos she's too wound up to ask for it herself.

rhymegirl · Sep 30, 2011

I hope I can provide some info that will be fair and balanced.

My mother had to go into a nursing home mostly because she needed to have an insulin shot every day. My father had given her the shot each day, but reached a point where he could no longer do it correctly. She also had Alzheimer's, which is a difficult condition for non-medical people to deal with.

Their insurance didn't cover a nurse coming to their home every day and none of us could afford to pay for that.

So, the first nursing home she went into did not work out well. I don't know details about the care, but I can tell you that she hated being there. When my whole family visited her she cried and cried and BEGGED us to take her out of there.

So we did. The second nursing home was a very nice place. We all checked it out, made regular visits at various times, and as far as I could tell, she was very well taken care of.

Susan Coffin · Sep 30, 2011

I see exactly where Plot Device is coming from, because for awhile I worked for a temp agency who staffed nursing homes. I went to some awful ones due to the way employees were treated and how the patients were not first. I refused to go back to homes where the standard of care to both staff and patients was below par. Plot, if this is not the right place for you but you like the particular work, then look for someplace that you like. If you don't like the particular work, then find something you do like to do. It sounds like you're having a hard time now. :Hug2:

Grandpa was in a nursing home a few months last year after numerous bouts of pneumonia that depleted his energy to the point where my aunt and uncle could not take care of him. He ended up going into a residential care home with six bed. While he was there, he lived with four women and the two nurses. The nursing home was just fine, but the residential care home was exceptional. My grandfather ended up passing away there. I will never forget the kind and compassionate nurses who were able to help my grandfather through his last days on life.

Silver King · Sep 30, 2011

In all likelihood, Plot, your employers are skirting, if not outright shunning, laws that help govern assisted living facilities. I'd be surprised, seeing as you're such a fighter for and supporter of human decency, that you wouldn't document the abuses you see, then take your findings to whatever the highest authority is that oversees nursing home care in your area. From what you've described, what your employer is doing is wrong on a number of levels, and most likely illegal.

shelleyo · Sep 30, 2011

Plot Device said:
I just started as a nursing assistant in a nursing home a few weeks ago. I absolutely hate it. I love these old people, but the workload is too much. There needs to be at least 50% more nursing aids on the clock than what this place is willing to pay for. As far as HOW the work actually gets done ... there is the "legal" way to administer care as mandated by law, and then the expected way to try and get it done in time. And then at the end of your shift, you sit down and fill out paperwork where you check off a hundred little boxes where you CLAIM you performed certain types of care upon people. But you didn't. Nobody did.

I worked as a nurse's assistant when I was 18. Sounds exactly the same as it did then. Shame that kind of thing hasn't gone away in the last 24 years.

Now, I know there are some quality facilities where this doesn't go on. They're usually private paid nursing homes that don't accept state aid patients, however. That's not most of them.

For the record, I lasted about 2 months before hurting my back. While the injury was a pain, and it's caused problems since, I don't regret being unable to do that work anymore. It was like going to work in a misery factory. I'm still haunted by a few things that went on there.

I take comfort knowing that I made some of their days better, at least when I was new and still optimistic. You do what you can do. And at times, they made my day in some way or another. But I cried a lot at night. I think I was too young, which didn't help. I'd never seen a man in the buff before, and here I was washing old men who were pretty randy and handsy at times.

My mother worked there, too. She cooked, and eventually went on to a career as a dietary manager at a good nursing home that did take care of the people--they exist, I promise.

But she made me swear I'd never her put in her one, and had she ever had need for such a place I'd have done everything in my power to keep her at home, and barring that I'd have begged, borrowed or stolen to make sure she went into one of the good places.

Hang in there. You can report things to labor board and any organizations locally or on the state level that mandate care, but don't let anyone at the place know it's you. Sadly, they could still find out unless you report anonymously, but anonymous reports aren't taken as seriously. I hope things get better for you.

Shelley

Plot Device · Oct 1, 2011

I can't post in this thread anymore. I can't even read the thread without bursting repeatedly into tears.

I have asked a moderator to close the thread.

Maryn · Oct 1, 2011

Plot Device said:
I just started as a nursing assistant in a nursing home a few weeks ago. I absolutely hate it. I love these old people, but the workload is too much. There needs to be at least 50% more nursing aids on the clock than what this place is willing to pay for. As far as HOW the work actually gets done ... there is the "legal" way to administer care as mandated by law, and then the expected way to try and get it done in time. And then at the end of your shift, you sit down and fill out paperwork where you check off a hundred little boxes where you CLAIM you performed certain types of care upon people. But you didn't. Nobody did.

I have been told by loads of other nursing aids in real life an on the internet that this is all pretty standard. And right now there are efforts to force nursing homes by law to have a minimum number of nursing aids on the clock with a standard ration of patients to nursing aids. And there are businessmen fighting it saying it would cause an "undue burden" upon the nursing facilities to mandate all those "extra" people on the clock. But I say the patients are being unduly burdened by being forced to wait 20 minutes straight for someone to answer their request to take them to the bathroom.

Don't ever put yourself or one of your loved ones in a nursing home. Even if it's a standard post-operative thing of just a week or so in a nursing home, don't ever do it. Find a way to have a private duty nurse take care of you at your house. Or a family member. But don't ever go to a nursing home. You will be left to sit in your own pee, you will get touched by unwashed hands, you will have your personal clothes ruined, you will have your food messed up. Don't ever go there.

Plot Device said:
I can't post in this thread anymore. I can't even read the thread without bursting repeatedly into tears.

I have asked a moderator to close the thread.

Perhaps you should not permit yourself to look at this thread if it upsets you so, but you don't get to control the discussion you opened. As I said earlier, I'm sorry your work environment is so awful and the residents there are not getting the care they should. That's unconscionable.

But you also need to own your own words. You did say the things quoted above, and other AW members have said they do not agree with your assessment as the truth about all nursing homes.

If this is the line of work you want to pursue, I urge you to identify the good nursing homes where you live and apply for work there. I also second the suggestion that you document the illegal practices at the one where you now work and give the data to whatever agency oversees their operation.

Maryn

sassandgroove · Oct 1, 2011

I worked in a Long Term Care facility in the kitchen. The people there worked very hard to make the end of the patients lives as comfortable as possible. I know there are places like you've described, but there are a lot places that are great. I hope Plot that you'll document what you've observed and report it and that you will find someplace that you like better to work.

Silver King · Oct 1, 2011

Plot Device said:
I can't post in this thread anymore. I can't even read the thread without bursting repeatedly into tears.

I have asked a moderator to close the thread.

I will honor your request, as it seems the best course of action at this point.

Hope things work out for the best, Plot.

I hate my job (CNA in a nursing home)

Plot Device

A woman said to write like a man.

firedrake

practical experience, FTW

Plot Device

A woman said to write like a man.

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is

Alpha Echo

I should be writing.

Alessandra Kelley

Sophipygian

Maryn

At Sea

mirandashell

Maryn

At Sea

firedrake

practical experience, FTW

dolores haze

international guttersnipe

mirandashell

rhymegirl

It's a New Year!

Susan Coffin

Tell it like it Is

Silver King

Megalops Erectus

shelleyo

Just another face in a red jumpsuit

Plot Device

A woman said to write like a man.

Maryn

At Sea

sassandgroove

Sassy haircut

Silver King

Megalops Erectus