Losing A Resident

Losing a resident is one of the hardest things we deal with as a CNA. Over the months and sometimes years of working with a resident, they become almost like members of our families, and it is hard to see them go.

When there is a loss on our unit, everyone feels it - staff and residents alike. The staff must deal with the packing up of the resident's possessions, and sometimes deal with the grieving family members, all while they are grieving themselves. There is also the grief of a roommate to deal with, if the resident who passed away shared a room.

As CNAs, we often find ourselves in rather unusual positions in our everyday lives, because we have seen so much illness and death in our work. One CNA I work with told of a situation that had occurred in her family.

This CNA had spent a number of days at her mother's hospital bedside, along with her twelve brothers and sisters. Because she was accustomed to taking care of her residents, she had taken over much of the responsibility of caring for her mother in those last days. When her mother passed away, she found herself in one of the hospital lounges, comforting all of the other family members, until one of the nurses passed through and saw what was happening. The nurse took her aside and gently reminded her that she needed to forget for a moment that she was a CNA and to remember that she was a member of the family. She told me that at that moment, she felt really strange ...

All of us that heard her tell of this experience understood exactly what she had said. As CNAs we have to hold a lot of our own feelings inside in order to deal with the situations we see every day at work, and many times, this spills over into our every-day lives.

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