Hearts for Hospice...

I got a part-time CNA position with Hearts for Hospice in Murray and today, and tomorrow, I have orientation – drive around a bit, meet the residents, work with them, learn the paperwork, stuff like that. Next week I’ll be on my own and have my own route – not going to lie, that’s a little scary, going at it solo. It’s just you, the resident, the family or the facility – no one really has your back, it’s like working at Castle Rock Care Center where it was just you for 20 some odd residents. I think it’ll be okay though because today I went with the guy I was shadowing and visited some Home Health residents and he will normally be doing those ones himself so I don’t have to deal with that – my people will be in facilities and they’ll mostly by joint visits, showering or feeding and toileting and that's not a problem.

Home Health is another branch of Hearts for Hospice, sometimes when they need help they borrow us to visit their people and vise versa (there are only three full-timers, one PRN and then two part-timers and we’re all good, if we get more Hospice residents that could change)(Hearts for Hospice is located in Utah, Arizona and Idaho), so Home Health is going to the residents home and helping them with whatever they need help with, it’s rehab while they’re on the road to recovery. Hospice is facility based and is end of life comfort but while at the facilities we're showering, toileting and feeding the residents and I’m trying to figure out why – that’s what the other aides are getting paid to do for everyone else so why are we there? I don’t know but we’re getting paid for it so that’s good. Apparently, we mainly just take the stress off the other aides by working with some of their more terminal residents, we ease their workload a little. And just regular CNA’s work either in hospitals or nursing homes (I’ve never been a CNA at a hospital but I imagine it’s different) and they cover everything for the residents eight to 12 hours a day – with hospice we’re spending an hour or so with the residents and then we move on, we have a list of people we visit and when we finish our visits we’re done, sometimes you can have a long day sometimes you can have a short day.

The main difference is you’re working by yourself, independently – if you need help you can call the office but other than that you’re on your own, of course you check in regularly at the office and make sure everything is okay. We have to call in every morning and check the voicemail to make sure no one died or anything over night - how rude would that be to go visit someone only to find out they died the day before. At the nursing home you’re surrounded by nurses, CNA’s, residents, other staff and visitors all day long – there’s schedules to keep, routines, and tons of needless drama. At Hospice there’s not – you’re the master of your own schedule pretty much, the day is fairly flexible and there is no drama because you work alone, there’s a lot less stress. I think this will be good experience for me.

And I am in bright red scrubs with the Hearts for Hospice insignia on them - I didn't have to go out and purchase new scrubs, which was a relief for me because all my scrubs are in Colorado and scrubs are expensive. I am driving around a bit but it's not too bad, I get compensated for my mileage and driving time and it's a pretty sweet deal. And because it's part-time I have plenty of time to fill out job applications and go to interviews.