Nurse or care worker: What do we need?
Marissa Sandler is the CEO and co-founder of Careseekers. Previously a social justice lawyer and researcher for over 15 years, Marissa is passionate about helping people live with dignity and finding innovative solutions to problems.
After months of resistance, your ageing parents have finally agreed to getting some extra help. Now the question is what should this help look like – mum is very frail and needs help getting around and with managing her diabetes. Dad is also frail and needs help with showering and getting dressed in the morning.
Do you need a nurse? A carer? What’s the difference between the two and which one is most suitable for your circumstances?
Below we’ve outlined what nurses and care workers do. Hopefully this will help you decide which one you need:
Duties and tasks
A nurse traditionally does the following:
- monitors aspects of health such as blood pressure, temperature
- treatments such as changing wound dressings or catheter care
- manages continence
- manages and administers medicines.
A care worker traditionally does the following:
- assistance with meal preparation, eating/feeding, cooking
- personal care such as bathing, toileting, grooming, dressing
- getting in and out of bed
- social companionship
- assists with domestic duties
- assists with mobility
- running errands and taking to doctors appointments
Care workers may have additional experience in wound care management, continence management and caring for patients with dementia.
Qualifications
Registered Nurses (RN) have completed a bachelor of nursing from an Australian University. An enrolled nurse (EN) completes a 2year or equivalent Diploma of nursing within the vocational education training (VET) sector. ENs work under the supervision of RNs.
Care workers usually have aged care certificates and diplomas in aged care, disability care or community services. These qualifications are usually obtained from Registered Training organisations (RTO). These courses are delivered in class, online and include work placements.
Rates
Registered or enrolled nurses will charge a higher hourly rate than care workers. The care workers on Careseekers who have trained as nurses on average generally have an hourly rate of $35 or more whereas care workers on the Careseekers site seem to charge an hourly rate starting from $25 per hour.
Every situation is different, but you can probably engage a care worker if you, or the person needing care:
- Doesn’t need any medication or can administer their own medication or simply needs to be reminded to take their pills.
- Does not wear a catheter but needs some help with toileting and incontinence.
Whether you engage a nurse or care worker, the personality match between the worker and person being cared for is very important.
At Careseekers we speak to people every day who are caring for loved ones with dementia, we refer them to the resources above but we are also able to lighten their load with some time off by engaging a care worker from our website. Feel free to give us a call 1300 7765 465 to find out how a care worker can support your family.
Related links:
Spiritual care at the end of life can add purpose
How to talk to your parents about aged care
Tips to cope with losing independence with age