Last night at work...
Oy, vey. They have major scheduling problems. It's so important, they should really decide to make the effort to get it right! Of course, we're constantly understaffed, and also they write the schedule in the best of times and the worst of times as if no one ever called in or got sick, and that just isn't the way it is. In my previous life... or whatever, hospital administration, I prided myself on being flexible and cheerful and rolling with the punches. If they wanted me to move and do something else for the day, I would do so cheerfully. I generally believe that if you have to do something anyway, you might as well be cheerful. If you're a bitch about it, you lose most of the "points" that you got for being flexible in the first place!
As an aide, though, it is so different for me. It would absolutely show great skill if I could go smoothly from floor to floor, but I can't really. It's like... five times as hard when I'm on an unfamiliar floor. It's not as safe for me, and it's not as safe for the residents either. The ONLY skin tear that I've ever given someone was when I had been an aide all of one week (and not just at that facility, but anywhere!), and they had moved me to D hall where I didn't know anything about the residents, and there was a lovely lady who was a two person transfer, but there was no one to help me, and she was aphasic after a stroke, so she couldn't really give me directions, either. I looked at the care plan, of course, but that is a very poor substitute for knowing how she usually gets from wheelchair to bed. I ended up catching her leg on her wheelchair and giving her a skin tear. It was so preventable..., and it was my fault, of course, but that is one reason that I HATE being put somewhere where I don't know anything about the residents. I'm not sure why this is even more important to me than other people... Maybe it's that with my back pain, I rely on strength and proper technique. There are maybe five "Hoyer lifts" (residents who must be lifted with this contraption.. the Hoyer lift) on this floor, and so between the two aides, we have an elderly person swinging very high off of the ground, and the possibility of a lot going wrong. If something gets funky (their leg is about to get squished in part of it, they're falling to one side, they are grabbing the chain and might cut their hand) I'm sorry, but ergonomics go right out the window and I get under them and do whatever it takes! There's no way I'm letting somebody fall from 7 feet in the air. When I've never worked with the aide or the resident before, of course, a lot happens that's unexpected!
I'm getting ahead of myself. Yesterday they moved me to E, and within ten minutes my back was HOWLING. Also, it really sucks to get there early and get your supplies ready and walk through and learn what has changed... who's better, who's worse... generally get really prepared for the INSANE two hours before supper, where you'll be running around like a headless chicken. In those two hours you usually have to clean up, change, and dress about 32 people, give 5 or 6 showers, and try to give fluids to those who can't hold the cup for themselves, search for sheets, search for peri care solution, search for briefs, keep people who can't walk from standing up and falling, keep wandering male residents out of female residents' rooms, try to give a little extra attention to Mrs. B who's husband died last night ( :( :( :( I'll miss him... his death was a surprise to me, even though we always lose a bunch to pneumonia this time of year), and also respond to the miscellaneous requests of all of the residents. So starting out knowing where supplies are to the best of your ability and generally feeling ... not behind yet... is key. After I did all of that on my hall, and even got someone up, they moved me. I didn't know where anything was, they HAVE no garbage bags, they have no pericare spray, ... Arlonda won't work there because, as she says, "it smells like a pe''in Zoo!" And it sucks not to be able to organize your effort whatsoever. I never knew how many more people, big, small, whatever...there were. I was already stressed from just... my life. Usually, even if it's hard, it's a great feeling to go in and conquer work and do a good job. Also, Mrs. Miller is back from the hospital, and I wanted to check in on her a few times. She won't be around long, and I looked in on her before the shift started and she was clearly in such pain.
Ugh, anyway, they moved me to E where I didn't know a damn thing, and the nurse is a bitch (even though she likes me) and there were no supplies, and there was SO MUCH potential for injury to the residents just in large part because I didn't know which of their body parts tend to drag or collapse or what have you.
Enough venting for now. I'll just add that it wasn't even absolutely necessary that they move me, but the DON decided on a whim not to have two males working a hall, and the nurse wanted me rather than one of the two women working on D. If they don't want two men working on a hall, then DON'T SCHEDULE TWO MEN WORKING ON A HALL! It flabergasts me that they just. don't. get. this.
If you don't schedule anyone to work A hall, well, probably you won't have anyone there to work it! DUH!
If you schedule two men on a hall, you're going to have two men on the hall. Address it on the next schedule, have a woman come from another hall to take care of the one or two women who object to having a male take care of them, whatever. But it sucks that 1. They ALWAYS take one of us from B hall, leaving the other alone. And 2. it just really sucks to be moved.
It bothers me that I'm not the ultimate flexible "team player" in this regard, but I'm just not!
As an aide, though, it is so different for me. It would absolutely show great skill if I could go smoothly from floor to floor, but I can't really. It's like... five times as hard when I'm on an unfamiliar floor. It's not as safe for me, and it's not as safe for the residents either. The ONLY skin tear that I've ever given someone was when I had been an aide all of one week (and not just at that facility, but anywhere!), and they had moved me to D hall where I didn't know anything about the residents, and there was a lovely lady who was a two person transfer, but there was no one to help me, and she was aphasic after a stroke, so she couldn't really give me directions, either. I looked at the care plan, of course, but that is a very poor substitute for knowing how she usually gets from wheelchair to bed. I ended up catching her leg on her wheelchair and giving her a skin tear. It was so preventable..., and it was my fault, of course, but that is one reason that I HATE being put somewhere where I don't know anything about the residents. I'm not sure why this is even more important to me than other people... Maybe it's that with my back pain, I rely on strength and proper technique. There are maybe five "Hoyer lifts" (residents who must be lifted with this contraption.. the Hoyer lift) on this floor, and so between the two aides, we have an elderly person swinging very high off of the ground, and the possibility of a lot going wrong. If something gets funky (their leg is about to get squished in part of it, they're falling to one side, they are grabbing the chain and might cut their hand) I'm sorry, but ergonomics go right out the window and I get under them and do whatever it takes! There's no way I'm letting somebody fall from 7 feet in the air. When I've never worked with the aide or the resident before, of course, a lot happens that's unexpected!
I'm getting ahead of myself. Yesterday they moved me to E, and within ten minutes my back was HOWLING. Also, it really sucks to get there early and get your supplies ready and walk through and learn what has changed... who's better, who's worse... generally get really prepared for the INSANE two hours before supper, where you'll be running around like a headless chicken. In those two hours you usually have to clean up, change, and dress about 32 people, give 5 or 6 showers, and try to give fluids to those who can't hold the cup for themselves, search for sheets, search for peri care solution, search for briefs, keep people who can't walk from standing up and falling, keep wandering male residents out of female residents' rooms, try to give a little extra attention to Mrs. B who's husband died last night ( :( :( :( I'll miss him... his death was a surprise to me, even though we always lose a bunch to pneumonia this time of year), and also respond to the miscellaneous requests of all of the residents. So starting out knowing where supplies are to the best of your ability and generally feeling ... not behind yet... is key. After I did all of that on my hall, and even got someone up, they moved me. I didn't know where anything was, they HAVE no garbage bags, they have no pericare spray, ... Arlonda won't work there because, as she says, "it smells like a pe''in Zoo!" And it sucks not to be able to organize your effort whatsoever. I never knew how many more people, big, small, whatever...there were. I was already stressed from just... my life. Usually, even if it's hard, it's a great feeling to go in and conquer work and do a good job. Also, Mrs. Miller is back from the hospital, and I wanted to check in on her a few times. She won't be around long, and I looked in on her before the shift started and she was clearly in such pain.
Ugh, anyway, they moved me to E where I didn't know a damn thing, and the nurse is a bitch (even though she likes me) and there were no supplies, and there was SO MUCH potential for injury to the residents just in large part because I didn't know which of their body parts tend to drag or collapse or what have you.
Enough venting for now. I'll just add that it wasn't even absolutely necessary that they move me, but the DON decided on a whim not to have two males working a hall, and the nurse wanted me rather than one of the two women working on D. If they don't want two men working on a hall, then DON'T SCHEDULE TWO MEN WORKING ON A HALL! It flabergasts me that they just. don't. get. this.
If you don't schedule anyone to work A hall, well, probably you won't have anyone there to work it! DUH!
If you schedule two men on a hall, you're going to have two men on the hall. Address it on the next schedule, have a woman come from another hall to take care of the one or two women who object to having a male take care of them, whatever. But it sucks that 1. They ALWAYS take one of us from B hall, leaving the other alone. And 2. it just really sucks to be moved.
It bothers me that I'm not the ultimate flexible "team player" in this regard, but I'm just not!