With so many PCA's working in nursing homes and especially when there are PCA's IN CHARGE of wards (working as TEAM LEADERS) wouldn't you think that they would all be knowledgable in administering oxygen.

Well at the nursing home I work at apparently it is NOT the duty of a PCA to administer oxygen!!?? They are apparently not taught this in their course - if they actually have done one...

I work night shifts and the very first thing I do now at the beginning of the shift is to look for the oxygen cylinder, see if it has oxygen in it, and make sure there is equipment to actually administer the oxygen and suction. The 'equiment' includes oxygen tubing, suction tubing, yanker suckers, etc etc. and is usually kept in a pillowcase attached to the cylinder.The cylinder is supposed to be in the nurses station at all times (unless it is being used!).

Five times in a matter of weeks I have had a need to administer oxygen in an emergency, only to find that on all of these occasions I have been confronted with an empty oxygen bottle. On two occasions I ran to get a new bottle and change over the attachment to the new bottle - only to find that the 3 'reserve' bottles WERE ALL EMPTY. Meanwhile the patient is gasping for air and in need of some oxygen. On the other occasions I have had to first locate the oxygen bottle...of course no one knew where it was.....and on one occasion I located the bottle, but there was no equipment with it. ??

This facility has in place a system of ONCE a week 'checking the oxygen supply and its attachments and equipment'....you check it and sign that its checked and all there. Well! It only seems to get done once a fortnight and thats when I do it. I have reported in writing 'the problems' i have encountered and suggested that the 'checking' should be done daily. Nothing really has happened....a memo came out each time I reported it, but it may as well have not been written for all it was worth.

I have worked with PCAs who DO NOT know how to even turn on a bottle of oxygen, or what a yanker sucker is or does, or what the oxygen/suction tubing is or where to hook it up...let alone know how to use it. I go out of my way to teach these PCAs about oxygen use but they tell me they DON'T HAVE to do it. And that apparently is correct - they don't have to.

God help anyone -be them patients, visitors or staff who needs oxygen or starts choking and needs suctioning out...i would start praying now.

I work as a PCA but have past nursing experience/registration.(due to a lapse in registration and the high cost of getting registration back).