Frettful Thursday

Past the hub and onto Thursday. Thursday, an nearly impossible day ~ from a work point of view. My coordinator will be flat out attempting to staff the week-end. Health care, unlike many sectors of the the work-a-day world, must be staffed 24/7. At this point in time, when most people assume that they get every week-end off, arranging just the opposite schedule is something of a nightmare. My staffing coordinator will probably be canonized someday ~ patron saint of the tenacious! Bless her.

There are several job interviews set up - people anxious to be employed. Kern County unemployment is one of the highest in the nation. Dozens of applicants for part-time four-hour-a-day positions. And wanna know what ~ I seriously need to pick the best of the best because I need these new care givers to attend to fragile, aged elders. This nation's fragile elders ~ an almost unseen, unacknowledged population.

There is an "at risk" meeting in the afternoon. This list is the source of much fretting that feeds the warriors who knock around in my anxiety closet. People at risk of falling, people who have too many medications, people who are losing too much weight, people whose pain is difficult to control and numerous other categories that make life painful and difficult for the patient and complex and challenging for the health care team. We capture these concerns, put it on paper, map out new plans and push ahead in attempt to improve the quality of care and life for patients who are mostly over the age of 85 and have complex chronic and acute health care concerns. Life does not slow down for the ill, aged person. Life does not give an inch for the health care workers assigned to care for them. Regulations don't bend for those who live and work in this health care environment. Thursday brings the entire stewing brew into fretful focus. I've been doing this in some form or other for decades now ~ it hasn't gotten easier. So perhaps practice does not always make perfect...practice may make the terrain more familiar... More coffee ~ then off to work.