Happy Nursing Assistants Week!

As we celebrate Nursing Assistants Week, let’s think about how much time and talent these diligent professionals contribute to healthcare. Too often these professionals go unrecognized, despite their invaluable work, and at Scrubin we are adding our voices to make sure our indispensible nursing assistants get the recognition they deserve.

It can often be thankless work, and our nursing assistants play a vital role in caring for the elderly, the disabled and those under long-term and hospice care, as well as fulfilling some of the medical duties in correctional facilities. Their importance cannot be overstated.

Working under a nurse’s supervision, nursing assistants aid in helping the elderly and infirmed perform day-to-day tasks: eating, bathing and helping with dressing and hygiene, just to name a few. They take and record vitals. They assist in stretching and physical exercise, taking the patients for walks and helping them to remain active.

In so doing, Nursing assistants not only help to insure and safeguard the overall health of the patient, they also make an important contribution to the patient’s dignity and quality of life as well. Nursing assistants help these vulnerable folks help themselves, and in doing so serve as voices of encouragement and hope in fraught circumstances. Ask anyone who has been hospitalized, as well as his or her family, and they will testify as to the necessary work performed by nursing assistants.

Changes in healthcare have meant a tough time for many nursing assistants. In the past several years, staffing shortages and budget cutbacks have meant that much of the aforementioned patient care has fallen on fewer and fewer of these professionals. That’s why this week is so important, not to only celebrate the work done by our nursing assistants but also to showcase this viable and valuable career. As more and more Baby Boomers age, nursing assistants are going to be needed in the future more than ever before.

Let’s all make this Nursing Assistants Week a good one by honoring these committed professionals and thanking them for their hard work.