Certified Nursing Assistants.
This should be a noble profession, the girls really do like thier patients.
No, I will not call them clients. Patients are in need of care, clients are money makers for business. At least money is made for someone else, as CNA"s are forced to work at poverty level or below.
Nurses can no longer be equated with patient care. One freind dropped nursing school when , after two years, she hadn't even been taught to use a thermometer. In two years she only had an anatomy class, patient care wasn't even mentioned.
Nurses (RN's) can work ten years in a hospital and never enter a patients a room. They are in offices doing paper work.
LPN's are the ones doing treatments and passing meds, unless it is a floor where the liablitly is too high, then an RN is on the floor, but if the work can be passed onto a lower grade, it is.
Many RN's see patient care as a task below their station. If I only had a dollar for everytime I asked for help, only to have the RN tell me "I'm a nurse, I don't work with patients" as she trots down the hall with a big smile on her face. Leaving the patient looking at me in utter confusion.
The patient sat on the bedside commode for half an hour while I hunted down another CNA and waited for her to get a minute to help me.
One memory I have of working in a nursing facility (please note how the names always imply kind care giving in order to lure the client to their fate), involves patients being lined up along the wall opposite the nurses station. I was feeding a patient when I heard another patient trying to gert the attention of two administrators conversing in front of her.
she was asking for a tissue.
Several minutes went by and pleas became more urgent.
Glancing toward her, she was trying to wipe the snot running from her nose onto her shoulder, wiping the excess from her lips, she tried to remove the mucus from her tongue by scraping it along her shirt sleeve.
the adiministrators kept talking. A therapist and a doctor passed her and did nothing.
I left my patient, walked the three steps toward the tissue box and handed the client a tissue.
At no extra charge.
The two administrators kept talking then moved when they thought the client was too gross to stand near.
THe administrators have a private office, their own parking space and medical benefits.
CNA's don't.
My first job was in 1982. I made 3.35 an hour with the promsie of a nickel raise at the end of the year. The twit had the nerve to act like we were supposed to be enthused about this.
Finally, in the 80's there was a staffing agency called All Stat (not all state) who paid $7 an hour for day shift and $8 for weekends.
My freinds and I were ecstatic. We worked all we could for this agency, as most places paid $5 an hour at the most.
Now in 2010, CNA's still only make $8 an hour and that is the high side. One agency cut CNA pay by a dollar an hour citing the economy as the reason. Do you think administrators took a pay cut?
I was concerend when I accessed the DISCOVER computer program at the college. It lists nurse/psych assistant pay range as between $11-$17 an hoiur. I would love to know who they asked.
Medicare home health visits used to be $11 an hour back in 1990. I don't know what happened to the industry, but CNA's quit making money. The pay rate is busted down to $7-8 an hour with no consideration to experience.
I made more in 1990 than I do now.
