I have worked in health care for most of my life.

you know,kitty my friend..you remind me soo much of my mom..she is the sweetest perosn there is...very gentle, and easy to love. I can see how good a heart you have there.. i do know how great nurses earn there. must be nice to work there on day, and who knows, we get to meet in person?we could even work together by chance. yea..i must say nurses are so exploited here.we work sooo hard. and we get little pay. that provincial hospital I used to work for was paying even better than the city hospital.But i still can't manage to make ends meet. We have better benefits than the other hospital and even the private hospital,yet I can't pay for everything with what I'm making there. working conditions are not good either.our ward is not airconditioned. and everything is so old and rotten, even the building itself. patients don't get to enjoy good facilities and fresh supplies...i feel so sorry for them. the very reason why i stopped working there is because i worked my way up really fast and some old nurses got jealous with me. I started out as a volunteer and put up with all the work even with out being paid a single dime. then i was hired as a casual employee..when my contract ended, and there happened to be a regular spot, i went for it, topped the panel interview, and topped in the performance rate which was provided by the hospital's head nurse....A lot of old nurses were very helpful and nice to me..there are just a few ones who can't help being jealous and I don't understand what it is there to be jealous about. it makes me cry how they post terrible noted on my reminder board.they come all the way from the other ward just to upset me.i went home crying one time...that was the worst.and I quit after that. then i took my fisrt few months of being unemployed as an opportunity to review for my internbational exams..which i passed. I guess God meant for me to pass them because he knows my intentions are good. i do hope, at the right time..i will get to work there.. it must be really great to finally meet you in person one day kitty!

Hello my wonderful friend See you did it again you always make me cry, I told you not to do that Its funny right, we are in the same field we connected so fast, when I read your first post my heart melted I knew there was something special about you, I bet your a wonderful nurse, you know what is sad they make so much money here I mean so much money its amazing, its really unfair you do the same work 1-40 or 60 oh no, thats a lot of work and paper work, do they use computers for vital signs and things of that nature? the nurses here would be the patient if they had to work that hard, I use to work on a floor this may have been the biggest floor I ever worked on they had 52 patients 3 nurses or 4 can't remember 2 aides at night was suppose to be 3 but when we had 2 we had to deal with it, our field is hard work no matter how you look at it. I use to have a hard time with nurses but once they realized I was not going to be treaded with anything other respect no matte what tittle I held things got better, most nurses love me, the lazy nurses hate me, lol but thats fine I don't bite my tongue even the lazy nurses end up respecting me and work harder with me because they know I am good at what I do. I wish you all the best sweety, I hope you find work paying you what you are worth, would be nice if you could move to NYC, you would be rolling in the dough then you can take me to get my feet done everyday lol Thanks for the wonderful response to this post means alot to me.

Hello my wonderful friend Could you imagine we go from mylot to working together, lol just don't forget the little people when you are making all that money if I were you I would really look into it, then you can go home on vacation and show the nurses that gave you a hard time your pay stub that would really make them feel like crap for hurting you like that.I know I can be bad sometime lol What a wonderful compliment that is for you to compare me to your mom, I know how much respect you have for her so that means alot to me I am worthy and if we ever met you would see that for yourself. its really sad when you think about how things are done some places yet they are done totally different in others patients are patients and should all be treated the same, really sad.

Thank you so much, you also sound like a caring person, thank you for doing the job, this is not for everyone that I know, but its nice to know that you are trying and you obviously care since you said it's hard to walk away its really sad leaving them sometime, I have been doing this since 1989..I know I am meant to care for people in some form I have a very caring nature when I walk the street with my mom I am looking down to make sure she don't trip, or I hold her hand instinctively to help her on the side walk I miss the way I make my patients feel when I bathe them and clean their room, but I like what you said about the hours I use to work 12 hors that when I just sat with 1 patient that was a nightmare cause the staff did not want to give you a break, and if you were caught sleeping they would fire you on the spot, so I would get on the phone call the supervisor and explain I am entitled to my break how do you expect me too function without coffee sometime the supervisor herself will come to relieve me, the staff felt she is not doing anything but sitting with one patient but thats not true, that sitting with one patient can sometime be harder when they are difficult,my last job was home care which is something I didn't do often, but fewer hours is something I will do, I am sure I will go back, they need me, I have a gift and wasting my gift is not fair to all those patients that need me in their life,Thank you for your response keep me posted on how things are going with you, I will do the same.

I wrote a long response this morning but wasn't able to post it... I think you were treated very badly by the other staff when you were on the one-to-one care! We have 32 patients on our ward (currently 12 female and 20 male. When we are fully staffed we would usually have 5 qualified and 3 support staff on an early shift and 3 or 4 qualified and 2 support on a late (with fewer at night). If we have carers in, they will get their lunch break in the changeover period when both sets of staff overlap. We will always assist with washes and changes of their patient and, if we are not rushed off our feet 2 of us will do that whilst the carer takes a short break. They will be offered a hot drink each time the trolley goes round to patients (6 times a day) and we always tell them to ask if they need anything. We do have a few in who literally do nothing but sit beside the bed but,usually we can just work together for that patient. I hope things work out well for you

Now that is how things should be done, I don't think that you should have to do the patient care when they have someone with them, but everything else is great, sounds like you work for a great company, I was reading this with my mouth open like what/huh,they don't do that here, keep up the good work sweety, and I will be doing my part soon enough, you sound amazing I am proud of you, bless you, smoochess You know how I know your good, you never complain, I am sure you run into some people that complain about the work all day, yes sometime we need to vent , but when people do that all the time those are the lazy workers who should not be in the field to begin with, quick story I use to work in this nursing home upstate and we had 50 patients 2 sides of the floor, one day I was in my patient room doing something and I kept hearing the call bell going off, I am like why don't someone answer the bell, after a few minutes I come out of my patients room to walk to the other side only to see this aide sitting at the nurses station talking to the nurse, I said get up and answer that bell, she said wow I didn't realize, I went back to my patients room, could you imagine, Lazy is what she was, the shift was going to be over soon, so she figure she would sit on her butt and do nothing till time for her to go home, I think not.she never said anything smart because she knew I was right, and when your right people will respect you, most of the time, well you know in that field what could she say, no, she had no other choice I Was so mad, the nurse told me later she wish she was able to do that, I said me too, because its really not my place to tell my co-worker what to do.

Bless your moms soul, it is really hard work, and yes some nurses make you feel that way about, they make so much money here in N.Y that seem for get about compassion and all those other quality that make for a good caregiver, not all, there are some that really cares about their work, and those are the nurse I have respect for,some nurses would not touch a patient without an aide there to assist them, The fact that your mom is still caring for the elderly at 68 make her one of the best, I am sure she has a wonderful person to care for, they are really close I bet, I had to stop for a while I was burned out, I work really hard and when you work hard you can get burned out really quick, but I hung in their for years, I use to work 12 hours per shift and there were some people that did that every day, when I got off work in the mornings my eyes use to be so red, my coworkers would say to me you look so tired, well duh I been up all night, you on the other hand look like you are ready to go to work, which only tells me you were sleeping all night instead of working.lol

Hello my friend Sorry it me so long to respond to this my friend Really nice to know we share the same field of work, I do love caring for people seeing their face when I am done is priceless nothing like being in the hospital already scared to be treated unfair by someone who hates their job I tell everyone if this is not what you really want to do, please do something else, I use to take this class since I am not working I only stayed because it was different and I had a chance to share my thoughts with different people well they had this woman come in from this health care agency paying people minimum wage to work home care with elderly people that made me so angry the only reason they did this was because these people were unemployed and they figured they would be desperate enough to take anything geez this woman although doing her job but how dare you why home care give them a job in food service not to take care of elderly people for minimum wage how good a job do you think they would do making little or no money, the way the older people are treated and the care these agencies send to them makes me sick, I started to do it but I know that was going so far back I would end up lost so I refused they called me all the time I said no not interested ughh, but how dare you, you should be ashamed of yourself why home care why, so sad, this is why I had to stop Hatley I am really good at this and my last patient was a nightmare I had to take a break I was burned out people say to me just do it its a job, no its not just a job this only shows me they have no idea the skills you must bestow in order to care for sick people, they really have no clue.I consider this a gift this skills comes natural to me.

Hi Kitty, I'd say go for it if you get the chance, you really come across as a really warm enthusiastic person, the nurses out here could take a few tips from you.

Hello my friend Wow how different things are where you live, I thought about it, would really love too, maybe once I get back in the union I will look into, when I was in school I already had years of experience but for some reason things did not work out, maybe I needed a break I was burned out for sure, now I feel a little better we will see what happens in the near future. thanks for responding to this