First off, never underestimate that you, my fellow worker, as a human being, are worth nothing more than the revenue you can generate.
Work hard all your life and you can enjoy your twilight years in peace and quiet? We love our pensioners? Our elderly are valued? Our vulnerable are cared for? Bull to the shit! Shit to the bull! What a crock of dangerous lies fabricated to keep us earning.
Here's another fib so ridiculous you need to laugh so you don't cry, Health Care workers are our angels and heroes.
We're cripplingly depressed, riddled with PTSD and can only survive doing this shit for much longer simply because we're wage slaves without escape or trapped in our positions by our basic human empathy towards our fellow man.
Every single health care worker I've spoken to during and after the pandemic is miserable, scared, worn down and hanging on by the skin of our noses. Never in any other role have I seen so many people drink, chain smoke, break down in the work place or swallow anti-depressants and sleeping pills.
Every single day before shift I look at tired, broken, defeated faces who wish they could run right out of the gates, but it's not because of the poop, or pee, or the confused folks who want to chew your nose off, not even because of the shifts where you feel like a literal human shit mop.
The state of privately owned residential care homes for some of our countries most vulnerable and elderly is nothing short of a crime against basic humanity.
Their bones can't make glue, but their disease can make money for the parasites who exploit them.
Imagine sixty plus residents, the majority of whom are doubly incontinent, confused, agitated, disoriented, in pain, scared and unable to express it, all with very poor mobility and often with other psychiatric issues who need around the clock care to fulfil their needs from toileting to assisted feeding, and only having two members of care assistants to do it all.
Imagine working all your life, paying taxes, complying with the law, paying off your mortgage, doing everything you're told to do so you can remain a 'productive citizen', then making it to old age, developing dementia, then living your final twilight years sitting in a stinking lounge with peeling wallpaper on a piss soaked chair, with one old television your only entertainment, no other stimulation, being ushered around like cattle to be fed and watered.
Imagine the owners knowing their home is in crisis, staff morale is at an all time low, residents are not getting the care they deserve and need, and saying fuck it, let them all struggle because we won't raise the piss poor wage to attract new staff. Fuck it, we won't decorate. Screw it, we won't buy a new sound system or hire a mini bus and go out for a day, because all these poor people exist for is to line our pockets.
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I should not have to beg like I'm selling my soul for conti wipes/baby wipes so the residents can have clean bottoms.
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I should not have to walk past sobbing, confused and terrified residents who just need some TLC and reassurance because I have to take care of a palliative.
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I should not be paid so little for such a difficult role I'm eyeing up the scraps on residents plates.
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I should be able to uphold the dignity of human beings regardless of the cost.
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I should be allowed to unionize, discuss wages and demand pay that is equal to my labour.
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I should not be put in dangerous situations with residents with severe psychiatric issues, a history of violence and then get assaulted, all because management lied about the care needs of that individual and took them on for maximum profit, all the while belittling us for being 'cowards' so we do not raise a cause for concern for our own safety.
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I should not have to work with extreme and unethical resident to staff ratios because of the owners refusal to get agency staff. (They cost more).
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I should not have to work like a beast of burden and then go hungry because I have to choose between dog food or my dinner.
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I should not be in the position I cannot afford to have a shower after being covered in literal faecal matter.
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In my early twenties, I should not have seen the conditions in which our elderly suffer so badly, I've chosen to vanish up the hills with a bottle of Jack before spending my last few years starved of dignity, with my life not even worth a pack of huggies wipes.
No one goes into care for the trophies or the recognition, but how much longer do they think we will cope with these conditions before finally walking out and never turning back?