Submitted by TINA:
I turned 52 this month. I’ve been a CNA for nearly 20 years, but I can’t work the floor any more. I just can’t do it physically. I had Covid twice, and now they say I have “long Covid” and a heart condition. I’m still working, but I have to do front desk, escorts, stuff like that now.
Covid devastated the nursing home where I’ve been working. If it hadn’t been for Karen, our infection control nurse, it would have been even worse. Since the Covid unit closed down, there’s only 20 residents out of 70 still there.
Caring for people who can’t care for themselves is rewarding, yes it can be. But it’s also incredibly stressful, and it takes a major toll on your body and your mental wellbeing.
People ask me: “What do you do for self care?
I laugh, thinking about how, when I was in my 30s and 40s, a single mom, and I used to get home after working 2 jobs, double shifts all the time, and fall asleep right there in the driveway. Also, I couldn’t afford any “self care” other than maybe taking a bath at home. I’m lucky now that I’m working at a facility closer to home. I don’t have a long commute, but back then, driving from Tacoma to the facility in Puyallup and back every day just wiped me out.
I worry about the younger folks coming in as new CNAs today. Sometimes they’ve only had online training. They aren’t used to working with people, and the huge challenges you face on the floor trying to feed, lift, toilet, shower, dress, clean, and care for ten, fifteen or more residents at a time in a nursing home. Times that by doing it with two CNAs on the floor but you really need three.
Nursing home management say they can’t find workers. Well, I’ve seen a lot of new staff come in, but only a couple stayed. It’s like some of heavy labor industry jobs like construction, logging, commercial fishing – burning workers out, trashing their bodies so they have to retire by the time they are 50. Well, being a CNA is all that – it’s dangerous, and it takes immense physical strength, emotional intelligence, problem solving skills, and compassion – that was true before the pandemic, and now it’s even more true.
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