Working In A Nursing Home Forum June 19, 2008

Working in a nursing home is hard work.  I work the night shift and I have to make the rounds every two hours and change incontinent residents and toilet those who are continent.  Sounds easy right.  It should be.  But you deal with residents who apparently do not wish to be bothered while they are sleeping.  I don't blame them.  I don't care to be bothered while I'm sleeping either.  So how do you get by this.  If the resident is too combative, I will reapproach the resident in about 15-20 minutes.  I will do this 2-3 times.  If that doesn't work, I will either ask another aide to try or report it to the charge nurse.

I strictly believe in resident's rights.  I don't force a resident to do anything they don't wish to do.  If they are wet, that's another story.  You don't want a resident to lay in bed in a soiled brief.  For one thing, that 's how they start to break down and can get infections.  I see so many aides who don't even wipe the urine off them after they change them.  Part of this is probably due to staff shortages.  They are so overworked that they take shortcuts.  This is sad and it's the residents who suffer.