Developments In My Nursing Career

I used to love what I do. Caring for the elderly. I lived and breathed for it. I was raised by my grandparents and my great-grandmother. I have great fondness for the elderly and have treated them with nothing but the respect and dignity that they deserve. My recent job experience has broken me. The corruption regarding the administrator and the people under her care was rampant. The substandard care. The rewarding of bad employees. The constant scrutiny of good employees. Allowing abuse and neglect to continue under her nose and turning a blind eye as long as she sells beds. Keeping residents in the building because they are private pay, "The Big Bucks", according to her, even though they belong in skilled nursing facilities.

I feel like I am unheard. I've complained, reported, called the Department of Health, got a lawyer, but to no avail. I was treated poorly by my administrator and my co-workers because I was trying to do the right thing. I was labelled a "troublemaker", and a "snitch". I was accused and written up/disciplined for "making false statements" and "spreading negativity" whenever I reported neglect, abuse, medication errors, and unfair labor practices. I've been yelled at by subordinates when I, as a nursing supervisor, asked them to basically do their jobs. The administrator tells me I brought it on myself instead of backing me up as a supervisor. I had all the responsibilities of a supervisor and absolutely no authority.

The events leading up to my termination:

1. Monday: Administrator with hands on her hips says to me at the beginning of my shift, "People are saying you're talking about them and they're going to the union." Of course, this dictated my mood for the entire shift. At this point I'm grinding my teeth so badly that I have to put my mouth guard in while I'm awake. By 'talking about people' she means the nurse's aide who said a resident who asked to be assisted to the bathroom was "playing games" and lets her sit until she urinates on herself. The same nurse's aide who left the residents assigned to her lay in their own urine and feces for hours. Or the same nurse's aide who never gives her assigned showers except to the one alert resident who can tell on her. The residents under her care get frequent infections that can be prevented by bathing. YES, I'M TALKING ABOUT HER! DAMN RIGHT, I'M TALKING ABOUT HER! I'm talking about the med tech who wears ear buds and watches Tik Tok videos all day on her phone while the residents go without necessary diabetic supplies, incontinence supplies, miss doctor's appointments, and going days without necessary medications. I'm talking about the med tech who is on her phone ALL DAY while giving out medications and rendering care. Meanwhile, ditching the residents' medications in the sharps container instead of giving them to the residents, ON A DEMENTIA UNIT! I'm going to talk about the med tech, who, every time she works, a brittle diabetic resident mysteriously has to be hospitalized because she's in diabetic acidosis. I'm going to talk about the med tech who refused to give a resident benadryl and told him he "didn't need it" and he "just wanted to get high." I'm going to talk about the nurse's aide who doesn't answer call bells because she's sleeping all night and 5 residents fall on her shift. That's just the falls that are actually reported. I'm going to talk about the nurse's aide who reduced a dementia resident to tears because she was incontinent, screaming at her in the hallway in front of staff and other residents. I even recorded it on my phone and submitted it to the administrator. I'm going to talk about how I watched that same nurse's aide slam a blind, demented resident onto the toilet because she was resistant to sitting on her own. I'm going to talk about the med tech who never checked her residents the entire shift on the dementia unit. A resident was found at 6:30am laying on the floor beside his bed in a puddle the size of his entire body of vomit, urine, and feces, in rigor mortis, fully clothed from the night before. Dementia residents are supposed to be checked on every 2 hours especially the ones with seizure disorders. His hair was wet with his own excrement. The med tech quit right after her shift that morning because she knew she was wrong except the administrator talked her into staying.

Most of all, DAMN RIGHT, I'm going to talk about the administrator because ALL of these incidents were brought to her attention, yet she chose to do NOTHING. She allows those people to continue to care for the residents while she bullies, harasses, and degrades employees who actually care. I'm not the only one. A lot of good employees have quit or reduced their hours because the administrator continues to condone bad behavior and substandard care.

THURSDAY: The CNA on my unit, the abusive and neglectful one, starts giving me a hard time about some trivial "she said, she said" utter bullshit. I had no clue what she was talking about, but she started yelling at me in a resident area in front of residents and other employees. The administrator was retrieved. Then, the CNA and administrator had their arms around each other BOTH yelling at me in the hallway in front of the residents and other employees. I was reduced to tears with the administrator saying I brought it on myself. I worked the rest of the shift with a lump in my throat. I couldn't eat dinner. I couldn't read to the residents in the bistro like I did every night after dinner. I was too shaken up by what transpired. I feared for my job security.

FRIDAY: Off from work. I slept all day. Didn't feel like doing anything.

SATURDAY: I get to work an hour early. I see that I've been taken from my routine assignment for both Saturday and Sunday and assigned to 2 medication carts in addition to my "supervisor" duties. I know it's in retaliation for Thursday. I'm fairly certain my job is already on the line. I say, falsely, that I fell down the steps and twisted my knee taking the trash out. I have to make a quick decision, allow the administrator to USE me to cover two carts and the house as supervisor then fire me, or go home sick and get fired. I chose to go home.

MONDAY: I'm terminated by phone for leaving on Saturday despite my "knee injury". I was told by the administrator, "you were seen on camera. You weren't limping." and some bogus thing about a readmission that came unannounced, and I didn't send him back to the hospital. The administrator, who is also the marketer, is supposed to call the hospital for updates after the resident has been in the hospital for an extended period of time. He was hospitalized for eleven days. The administrator never called for an update. I PAID for her mistake and so did the resident. She said i didn't take a direct order from an RN to send him back to the hospital while the RN and I agreed it was the administrator's responsibility to arrange for the resident to be sent to a rehabilitation facility in the morning. The last time the RN gave me a direct order, the administrator told me: "You don't answer to her. You answer to me."

I AM SO CONFUSED!

It sounds complicated, I know. Imagine being in the middle of complicated EVERY FUCKING DAY! That's why I'm broken. That's why I doubt myself as a nurse now. That's why my confidence and self-esteem is in the shitter. I don't want to play the victim, but THIS REALLY HAPPENED. God help the residents and future residents of that facility. As for me, I don't want any pity. I just want to be heard. RIGHT IS RIGHT and WRONG IS WRONG. The administrator has condoned and dismissed WRONG all throughout her tenure as the manager of that building. It's sad for the residents. I can always find another job, but I've noticed recently because of the way I was treated for three years, that i have a little bit of PTSD. I'm afraid that everything I say or do will be overly scrutinized or negated.

So that's my story for now. I guess the old DON from years ago was right. "YOU CAN'T SAVE THE WORLD."