Aged Care Worker Burnout

I can't do this anymore

I really don't think I can do this anymore. I'm exhausted from 12 months of really difficult clients, ones that have deteriorated dreadfully in that time.

If you think I'm just a moaning careworker who is UNcaring, think again.
Put yourself in a careworkers shoes, careworker, AIN, PCA, RN, you name it, Aged Care is hard, emotional, underpaid and it's dirty.

We study for a long time and continually upgrade our skills, often at our own cost - to clean up shit, yes shit, literally shit. Along with every other bodily fluid.

My clients are in their own or Government subsidized homes, they deteriorated so much they are unable to turn on a tap, or make a cup of tea.
They don't know who they are, or where they are, often they are walking around naked with poop and urine running down their legs onto the floor, then they paint the walls with it.
In a nursing home, they at least have the necessary equipment to clean it up and sanitize it, in the community you are at the mercy of the families to buy the necessary items, and often they don't.

They wet the bed and even with continence aids they wet right through them, through plastic mattress protectors, right into the mattress.
Every day - every single day. Why? Cause they are on their own from 5.00pm to 8.30am and are incapable of toileting themselves.
They also yank all the linen down and pee on it.

Apart from the pee, we clean up masses of poop, you would not believe the amount.
Funny that our extensive course to become qualified in Aged Care does not cover cleaning at all and that is really what most of our job consists of, cleaning up human waste.

I turn up at 7.40 to a house covered, painted in poop, and the client is covered in poop, the house reeks, the client is dry reaching from the stench, client refuses shower, trying to convince them gently that it would be 'wonderful to have a nice warm shower' (not to mention to wash all that poop out of their hair)
But the client, yells, hits, throws things claiming they already had a shower so it takes great skill and patience to get them into the water.

I get this every single morning.

I then have an entire house to sanitize. Client is now clean and dressed but stressed and shrieking at me "Don't touch that!" to their soiled and sodden sheets, carpet, towels, mattress.
I understand the disease! But it gets to anyone doing this job to be constantly berated even if it is by a person with dementia. Sometimes you just want to say "Fine, do it yourself" but you can't, you have to get it done, and you go way overtime just fighting off a person with dementia who wants to keep all the poop on the carpet.

The family does the shopping, I go to grab the disinfectant, to find that I am now provided with "no name household disinfectant" and frankly it's useless, I'm trying to protect my client and myself plus other careworkers from getting sick! But of course, cutting costs is the families priority.

Issues reported. Nothing happens.We then have the constant problem, with clients, of UTI's, urinary tract infection, because of all the poop all the time. Report made, family notified, again and again and again, it takes the family TWO MONTHS to take them to the Doctor for antibiotics! We as careworkers are NOT allowed to do it, because the family has voiced that they want to do it, we are not miracle workers. We are told "It's up to the family" and when the family take their sweet time to do it - nothing is done.

Then I have to get medication to my client, and breakfast and wash all the bedding and hang it out. The washing machine is tiny, it takes me 4 loads before it's finished.
Did I mention I am allocated half an hour to do all this?

But wait, lets talk about breakfast, lunch and dinner of my many clients. When families insist they do the shopping, guess what? There is NEVER enough food (cost cutting), I have personally gone to clients who have NOTHING to eat in their fridges, freezers or pantry, Nothing, no, I am not exaggerating, there is nothing, it's all empty.

Report made. Nothing is done.
 
I go and buy some bread and cheese just so my client can eat, I purchase out of my own money. I cannot morally give someone their medication and then turn my back and leave them hungry and confused.



Each day that I walk into a home full of urine and poop I am screaming in my head, not outloud, "Really? Do you really have to do this every single day?"

Instead I smile and groundhog day starts again.

I know I am burning out, have a holiday I hear you say! Well it would be lovely if I could afford to. Firstly we are generally paid less than a checkout operator and we are ALL casual, so if we have a week off, we don't get paid. If a client dies or goes into a home, we don't get paid, we don't get new clients for ages either.

Families complain about facilities, "Is my mother/father/aunt/uncle sedated? Oh my that is wrong! Why have they not been changed? bla bla bla"
Well frankly FAMILIES, you have no bloody idea.
so lets get this straight right now.

a) If your loved one is sedated, it's because they are running amok and hurting people, I know they don't know any better but a sedative would have had to have been written up by a doctor and frankly, if it were ME, I would rather be sedated than hurting people or running around spreading shit everywhere.

b) If your loved one has not been changed, it's because of the staff to patient ratio, give those workers a break, they will get to them, they just have not had time. They are all running around after patients who need to be sedated who are hurting people and spreading human waste everywhere. (yes, that is sarcasm)

c) It's not that careworker staff don't care, they DO care, they just don't have the manpower to do everything at once, it's soooo easy for someone who has no clue to just waltz in and demand "Why is this not done? why is this not done?" walk a mile in their shoes and you'll soon find out. 

Give your careworkers a bit of slack, both in the facility and in the community.

 Your fathers house smells like pee? - don't blame the careworker, it's because your father is incontinent and peeing on the carpet that you are too cheap to get professionally cleaned

Being a careworker is hard with little to no praise and a poor hourly rate. They aren't your slave.

I am burnt out, there is nowhere for the careworker to turn, I have to find a different career.
I started in this industry to make a difference, to make the life of others a bit easier, a bit happier. It's pretty obvious that I can't do any of these things.