Weightlifting

[C. Petersen]

> I worked for four years in a nursing home, and must say the attrition rate
> due to injury increased dramatically over that time. One reason was staff
> reduction, mostly along the lines of "Professionalism"; i.e., R.N.'s becoming
> supervisors and managers, L.P.N.'s becoming shift overseers and pill pushers,
> while fewer Assistants were apportioned to greater numbers of highly
> debilitated patients. The average for the firm in which I worked was 1
> assistant per 8 patients in 1992, but 1 to 12 in 1995. We were considered
> good, too.

oh, my boyfriend got certified as a nursing assistant (a very short course
- they don't train them very well) and he was working in a nursing home
last summer. They were perpetually short staffed which resulted in their
having to run around frantically trying to get everything done. Supposedly
this was one of the best homes too. The residents would start to cringe
away whenever they entered the room as though they were scared of them.
They were forced to take shortcuts like lifting patients by themselves w/o
using a safety belt in order to get everything done. He ended up quitting
fairly soon, so it seems like the field will end up with a lot of people
who were unable to get jobs in any other area.