That’s a shame. The unions still hold sway. Patients will suffer… maybe somebody you love.
State Assembly lawmakers attempted and failed Wednesday to override Gov. Tony Evers’ veto of a bill that would have decreased state training requirements for nurse aides.
Legislators voted along party lines, 63-36, on the veto override. All Republicans voted in favor of the override; all Democrats voted against. Veto overrides require a two-thirds majority to pass.
Evers vetoed the bill in November. Under the plan, certified nursing assistants would only be required to complete 75 hours of training, the federal minimum, in Wisconsin. Current state law requires 120 hours.
This is a shame. There is a severe shortage of CNAs in the country.
As a former CNA,you need to learn how to take vitals, how to turn patients, clean up poo and pee, how to treat patients and use a computer. The rest can be learned on the job.
The above can be taught in a week, maybe 2.
Democrats will do anything to make health care more costly. Awful. Just awful.
The current shortage is demographically driven by the glut of Boomers aging out that require minimal care nursing services. As the Boomers continue to drop dead so will the shortage of CNAs. Both are inevitable.
CNAs in Wisconsin are paid around $15/hr and that’s nearly 15% more than the national average. While the need is great the job itself is not particularly attractive and doesn’t pay well. It’s entry level nursing and the skill set required is minimal. It’s no more a career position than being a fry cook at McDonalds.
Depending upon the setting, odds are really good that if you receive care from a CNA in southeast Wisconsin he/she is a nursing student working toward their RN. Your care is being provided by somebody motivated to learn and advance. From a patient’s perspective an upside to the current local CNA shortage is that highly qualified RNs are filling the gap in services created by the shortage.
Merlin, I highly disagree with you when you compare CNAs and McDonald’s workers. In fact, that is highly offensive, as I have been a CNA.
The skill set is not minimal. First, you need to have the patience of a saint, a very strong stomach, a very strong back and knees. You also need to extremely flexible, have a decent knowledge of math and English, have great, not average, communication skills, work all shifts, sacrifice your body for the good of the patient, clean human poop and pee and so much more.
No, Merlin, a CNA is much more than a teen job at Mickey Ds.
A very offensive comparison, indeed.
“Shortage” just means the employers aren’t offering an attractive package to find enough employees, right?
And if this was a Democrat saying “we need more but we don’t want to pay for it,” what would you say?
Mar:
CNAs are entry level nursing. Full stop. They do not possess the skill sets or the pay scales of the now nearly extinct LPNs, the mainstream RNs or the highly educated and well-paid NPs no matter how saintly the work they perform is. And, yes, caregiving in any form is saintly.
I have a wife, two daughters, and a daughter-in-law who all began their nursing careers as CNAs “scoopin’ poop” (as they called it). I’m intimately aware of what nursing requires and the toll it takes on the individuals and their families. We are seldom able to get all of us in a room at the same time.
I only intended the comparison to a Mickey D fry cook in the vain that the job is not a good career choice, which it is not now and unlikely to be anytime in the near future. That doesn’t denigrate the folks performing the job or the reality of the job. It is what it is.
Merlin, nowadays, depending where you live,you can earn a decent amount of money because of the shortage of CNAs. Do they make the same ad am RN, of course not, but you can easily make $40,000-$50,000 a year as a CNA.
And your comparison, as you just described is even worse.