For weeks, Tammy Schooley watched as health care providers ignored her father as he lay in a hospital bed suffering from cancer. <\/p>\n
If she told them he needed a bed pan, for instance, Schooley said they told her to let him go in the bed. If he needed help during the night, I couldnt get anybody to come in and help me. <\/p>\n
There was just such a lack of care and concern, and thats putting it nicely, Schooley said recently. Her father, a semiretired physicist, died at age 82 in August 2011. <\/p>\n
What her dad went through, along with how her mother was treated when hospitalized with Alzheimers years earlier, motivated Schooley to train to be a certified nurse assistant. <\/p>\n
In many ways, her story underscores the need for more qualified health care workers, a shortage that has been deepening in the past few years as the nations baby boomers age into retirement by the millions and fall in need of care. <\/p>\n
I told myself as soon as I could find a program, I was going into the health care field, she said. I had to try and make a difference. <\/p>\n
According to the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, by 2020 the nation will need 1.1 million additional direct care workers a category that includes certified nurse assistants. <\/p>\n
With the increasing need in the health care field, the American Red Cross recently launched a second round of classes to train certified nurse assistants to provide basic care such as feeding, dressing, bathing and monitoring to patients. <\/p>\n
It was exactly what Schooley, 51, of Conyers had hoped for, and when she happened upon the program in July, she signed up immediately. <\/p>\n
Schooley would bring with her the compassion she believed her parents deserved, and the CNA instructors would teach her how to properly provide the care they needed. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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Red Cross launches new round of nurse assistant classes<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For weeks, Tammy Schooley watched as health care providers ignored her father as he lay in a hospital bed suffering from cancer. If she told them he needed a bed pan, for instance, Schooley said they told her to let him go in the bed. If he needed help during the night, I couldnt get anybody to come in and help me Continue reading