State:: Ohio

Occupation:: Certified Nursing Assistant

I have been a licensed Certified Nursing Assistant for seven years. I went to college to obtain my certification and am still in college to obtain my Medical Assistant certification. In my seven years as a CNA I have worked in a childrens hospital, hospice,2 nursing homes and have done homecare. In every place I have worked the CNA,STNA,PCA and CPCA positions have paid the least. These postions REQUIRE the worker to produce a high volume of work in an 8 to 12 hour shift,which includes TOTAL care of 8 to 20 patients at a time with maybe 3 people on staff to care for this amount. The most recent nursing home I worked at stated the state says that 1 CNA can provide TOTAL care to 15 patients.The ratio is 15 to 1. I would love to see how ANY one could provide TOTAL care to 15 patients in an 8 hour shift. This requires bedbathing bedridden patients,using hoyer and other lifting machinery to get them out of bed( a requirement 3 times in 1 shift to avoid the possibility of bedsores and skin breakdown).Feed them,clean them back up and get them ready to go back to bed.One of the reasons I wanted to become a CNA was to provide excellent care to the people who needed it the most and that is the people with dementia,alzheimers,bedridden patients who cannot take care of themselves while giving them the personalized attention they deserve. With 15 patients to do this for in an 8 hour shift the most attention I could give was to walk in the door and make sure they were not wet or laying in their own feces. This is NOT quality care by any stretch of the imagination. The elderly and children require attention beyond the limits that 2 or 3 people can provide in this setting. I have since left the nursing home because I would go home at night(3 to 11) shift and feel so degraded that I could not provide quality care to my patients. I implore the government to look into this agreement of the 15 to 1 ratio, it CANNOT be legal. That is less than substandard care and our elderly and disabled do not deserve that kind of care. As long as we are on the subject. Certified Nursing Assistants may not have the training to do brain surgery but we should be paid as if we do. If you think it is easy being one, go head and try it if you have the guts.