I'm a certified nursing assistant, I work in a longterm care facility. I make $19 an hour and while that's a lot compared to a lot of other places, it's still not enough for what we do. I work on the skilled nursing floor in my facility and we are constantly purposely short staffed. HR will only schedule 2 cnas and one nurse on our floor because there are only 16 residents but what they fail to realize is that all of those residents have dementia, half of them are major fall risks and must be watched at all times, all of them are completely dependent, and a good amount of them are obese and need 2 cnas to do basic care. Realistically, a safe number of staff should be 4. But they don't care about that, they don't care that I'm constantly doing the work of 2 people. Everyone is always fighting for better pay for nurses and I 100% back that up because I love and respect my nurses, but no one fights for us CNAs. We need respect and better pay too. Because without us, every nurse would struggle immensely more than they already do and the entire healthcare system would collapse. I don't just wipe ass for a living. I'm making sure your grandpa and grandma have bathed and eaten that day. I make sure to listen to all their needs. I'm their shoulder to cry on cause they have nobody else that will be their comfort. Nurses realistically need to be paid at least 50 an hour for what they do. I think cnas should be getting around 30 minimum.