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Provider Perspectives
Desiree Hutton
As a former Certified Nursing Assistant, Desiree Hutton has served on the front line of public health. At her hospital near Granite City, Illinois, Desiree was responsible for the detail work nurses and doctors rely on to treat patients effectively. This includes the management of patient charts, monitoring patients, cleaning sheets, organizing materials and general accommodation for all patients. Because of their direct and intimate relationship with hospital patients, Certified Nursing Assistants, or CNAs, used to operate within a patient limit to ensure that they were not overworked and that each patient received adequate care. Unfortunately, over the past decade, Desiree has observed a steady decline in standards, causing CNAs to be overworked and depriving patients of the attention they deserve.
This trend began once the patient limit evaporated due to lack of hospital funds. It is now common for a CNA to be responsible for up to 25 patients in a 12 hour shift. Under these working conditions, it is all but impossible for even the most conscientious of nurses to give each patient the care they deserve. CNAs must shoulder performance pressure from patients and their families as well as nurses and doctors. This invariably takes its toll on CNAs. Perhaps Desiree’s greatest pressure during her time at the hospital was her self-inflicted guilt over the declining quality of care. CNAs are trained caregivers and it is a dagger to the heart to see a patient suffer due to neglect. One of the instances that prompted her to leave the field happened during a routine night shift. An elderly patient was discharged and refused to leave because there would be no one to pick him up. Due to the hospital’s bed shortage, the staff decided the only solution would be to escort him to the lobby. While Desiree understood the need for free beds, to simply abandon him in the hospital lobby ran completely counter to her instincts as a care provider. She left her post and tried to organize a taxi ride to the patient’s nursing home, and upon returning was reprimanded for neglecting her position. It proved to be her breaking point.
Desiree has come to realize that the number of patients CNAs can attend to has a limit — and that limit has long been surpassed. While she feels for the patients, she equally empathizes with her fellow CNAs who are locked into this grueling lifestyle. The long hours, the infinite demands, and the low pay were enough to physically affect many of her coworkers and friends. Tragically, one of Desiree’s good friends became sick on the job and had to be cared for by her fellow CNAs before passing away.
Desiree has heard of similar conditions at other hospitals across southern Illinois. Hospitals that are underfunded must become understaffed to survive. Care providers especially feel this weight but have no voice despite the essential service they provide the community. Many feel compelled to stay because they have no other training and cannot afford to do without a salary. This hidden area of the health care crisis inspired Desiree to testify at the Health Care Justice Act public hearing in Collinsville. She hopes to illuminate the strenuous lives of direct service providers who dutifully struggle to provide quality care without the resources to do so.
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