I've just quit my job. I've been a NAC for over fifteen years.

[icymist]

I'm glad I've quit this job. Ever since the new administration took over, (about June of 2005) they've either found things to fire the old nurses or some other way to get rid of them. The new administrations finding fault with the old nurses, at first, looked as if nothing. It became clear to me that this was a form of harassment when nurses were intimidated into quiting after handing in their two weeks notice. I've watch this place deteriorate the last few weeks as the management -put in more and more medicare into our 'unskilled' section. Of thirty beds, there were eight medicare. That's nearly one third people! The day the State showed up for their annual survey, that number was reduced, by either transferring residents or 'reclassifying' them overnight to only four medicare patients. All that didn't get me to quit. The 'straw that broke the camels back' was when a I came to work one day and found that the section were to be divided up between the NACS as 30, 30, 12 and 12. There was only one nurse working with the first two thirty patients while the other nurse worked with 24 patients with two aids. I put in my two weeks notice the next day, as well as the nurse I was working with.

I'm sorry. I consider this to be a professional job. If the employer cannot live up to my standard of care, then I cannot work for them. I have very high standards and will not sacrifice them for corporate profits.

[Hissyspit]

1. Am sorry to hear you had to do this. But at least you have stood up for

what is right. Health care is not a particularly good place for corruption.

(P.S. Profits, not prophets. Sorry, nitpicking. ...Unless you're deliberately making a double entendre!:7 Or is it a pun? Those two always confuse me.)

[icymist]

3. Changed it to 'profits' ....

Was, and still am, upset. This was more than just quiting a job. I had to explain to people that I've been caring for years that I wouldn't be back.

[icymist]

4. Dupe. Delete plaese.

[philb]

2. Whats a NAC? health care in the U.S. does have major problems

we have the highest per capita revenues of any country and according to U N statistics one of the worst sytems among major
coutries. Even Cuba compares favorably with the U.S. per health statistics.

[icymist]

6. An NAC is a Nurse's Aide, Certified.

We go through classes and extensive testing and then have to maintain a professional license. When you yell out 'nurse' in a nursing home, the NAC is probably the first person to ask you what you want.

[Warpy]

5. I'm not surprised.

All these management types are trained to think of employees as cogs in a machine, and when a cog gets old and starts looking like it might break down some day, they rip it out and stick in a shiny new one. They have actual tables that tell them when an employee is likely to start costing them more money than hiring a brand new trainee would. They love new grads, oh, how they love them. They budget for the lawsuits...

I've quit more than one job when staffing cuts made me feel like my license was on the line every time I walked through the door.

If you kept an actual paper trail about the Medicare shenanigans, it might be wise to drop a dime on them. This is the kind of thing Medicare likes to look into, and understaffing that gross needs to be looked into by the state nursing home regulatory agency. An alert may result in an unscheduled visit, turning up the problems you specified.

I'm out of it now, and I can't think of anything that would induce me to go back, even if my spinal arthritis could be cured overnight. Turning healthcare into a for profit business and trying to run it like a Wal Mart has resulted in an inefficient, overburdened, hideously expensive patchwork system that works for no one save a few corporate CEOs living like sultans on the backs of the sick.

You're well out of it. Good luck on finding a more rational place to work.