Someone talked..... (secret police...)

Poke enough people with a stick for too long and someone, somewhere, sometime will shout out loudly enough to be heard. Well: someone talked!

Going about my beeswax today, a client's daughter asked me what I thought about the paper.
"The paper?" I was clearly not getting it....
"The front page of yesterday's paper" and she handed it to me.

Someone, a very brave someone, took the intiative to call the paper and report on the results of cuts to scheduled visits. ie: from 60 minutes to 45 minutes. That particular someone exposed themselves rather too much when they commented that they were sent to a home without being informed that another worker was injured previously.
hmmm
I think I went there as well but I was prepared.

You have to pick your battles.
I am pretty sure I know who this person is, but really, it is all of us.
We are not anti-employer, we are pro-client. And as we work on the Government dime, you and me and every tax-payer of the Province is paying our wage. We want to give quality care. We know where privatization leads, and it is not to over-abundances of quality. It is to caste system care- got the cash, get the perks- otherwise its wash your hands face give your privates a wipe and we are outties.

I used to call in to my Supervisor every single thing that outraged me.
She got the point.
My new Supervisor, my 6th in 6 years, knows full well what I think.
We have crossed swords in the past. I know she does what she can, and I know she is an inherently good person. I report things that can be changed. I report health and safety problems. I don't report microshit crap.

When you work the day shifts, there is always someone who has your back. Help is just a phonecall away. When you work evenings, it's catch as catch can. My regime of report-o-mania occurred when I worked evenings. Believe me, every single evening contained at least one reportable incident from violent outbursts to people fainting from dehydration, to addresses obliterated by branches necessitating getting out on busy roads to walk up and down looking for house numbers in the dark.

My compromise was to work days. I also make a point of refusing assignments that contain unsafe components. My employer would say that every assignment is safe, but with the increase in dementia clients living at home, I beg to differ. My old photo name tag has the dental imprints of a man who had a delirium. If I hadn't been wearing the tag, he would have bitten my nipple off. And what was I doing where this could be an issue? I was pushing him in his wheelchair through a door and right at the point where my hands where in a different room than his teeth he tried to bite me. Pretty savvie for a delirium I would say.

We work at risk.
All we want is to be informed.
Be safe.
Be respected.
I know the person who called the paper did it with the best of intentions, although there was one sentence that annoyed me...** We have enough legitimate provable issues to address without speculative scare-mongering.

I know, I know. What a dream!


** only the one you say?