The hardest job I have ever had was being a certified nurse’s aide. The nurse’s aide job is very labor-intensive; often there is not enough staffing, so you are forced to work alone a lot of the time. That is because nursing homes all over for the United States have nurse staffing shortages. The average certified nurse’s aide earns between $7 and $10 per shift at a nursing home.
Working as a certified nurse’s aide, is often a very thankless job it, it is almost as if the residents become numbers in the daily routine. When you have eight hours and up to 10 residents on first shift, this is assuming there are four aides on a unit. These 10 residents that you must assist with dressing, daily bathing, feeding breakfast and lunch, laying them down for a nap, you have very little time to sit with them and make them feel like a person, they become numbers that you must get done.
Last say that two of those 10 residents, you simply need to pick up their dirty clothes and give them minimal help that leaves eight residents that a certified nurse’s aide must do a most everything for. For these eight remaining residents a certified nurse’s aide will assist with feeding them, change attends, straighten them up in their wheelchairs when they lean to the one side a little too much. A certifies nurse’s aide transfer of them from the bed to the wheelchair using mechanical equipment for naps, assist with daily bathing and dressing in any other non-medical need that they may have. Most certified nurse’s aides do not give medications as that are a nurse’s job, however, the certified nurse’s aide will take a resident’s temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and at times, in oxygen reading. This and more are what a certified nurse’s aide does on first shift to earn $7 to $10 an hour.
On second shift, which begins usually have 3 p.m. there are usually three to four certified nurse’s aide per unit, but often it is just two or three certified nurse’s aide. This means that the average 42 residents are split between those two to three certified nurse’s aides leaving each a very high number of residents to feed supper to and to get ready for bed. I used to go to work at 7 p.m. midway through second shift and I would have any where from eight to 14 residents to get ready for bed within the two hours. If I was the second certified nurse’s aide on second shift, I would have up to 22 residents to get to bed within 2 hours there was no way possible to do that work load in the short of time, so I often worked well into third shift. Do not tell me it is impossible, because I have done it to many nights to count, all that for $7-$10 an hour that a certified nurse’s aide earns per hour.
There is usually two certified nurse’s aide scheduled for a third shift on any given unit but most of the time it is one aide on a unit, and that 1 certified nurse’s aide is responsible for all 42 residents. Granted, not all the residents will need care during that eight hours shift, but three quarters of them will require turning and repositioning every two hours, a snack in the case of a diabetic resident, and a great number of them will require a change of attends every few hours during the night. The third shift certified nurse’s aide will also pass out attends products to those residents on the unit will require such products in this task alone can take up to an hour of valuable time.
Sure, some residents, within the nursing home can do most of their own care. Those residents are a few and far between as there has to be a medical need people to live in a nursing home. Most of the residents within a nursing home are total care, which means certified nurse’s aides do about 75% of their daily care. It does not matter which shift you work as certified nurse’s aide, chances are, you will work short most of the time, and for the low wage of $7-$10 an hour. This is a job, that you really must love in order to perform.
