I'm a nursing student working as a health care aide at a long-term care facility, and yesterday's shift brought me to my wits' end! Not only were we a HCA short, our dietary aide assigned to the floor that day had to go home just a few minutes into serving breakfast due to illness. Mornings are already busy and stressful even when we're fully staffed, so you can imagine what me and the other HCA (both of us fairly newbies) went through that day.

Added to that, there is one particular resident who drove us absolutely nuts that day, and the thing is, she's ALWAYS like this. Basically, this woman is never happy. It doesn't matter what we do, what we offer her, she complains that she's  in a hell-hole and that she's being neglected. When we assist her with her ADLs, she complains that we're "not doing it right" and to get someone who will do a better job. She'll complain about the food being horrible, which I can understand from time to time, but it happens every meal, every day (and I've tried the food myself - it's not bad and most other residents seem to find it decent, at the very least!). The dietary aides are supposed to write down complaints from the residents about the food so that it can be improved, but with this woman, it's gotten to the point where they've stopped writing her complaints down because nothing makes her happy. For example, one day, she complained that nothing but sweet things were being served for dessert, but the next, she complained that the dessert was not sweet!

We try to offer her alternatives but she refuses those, too. Even yesterday, we offered to make something from the food in her own personal mini-fridge, but she refused that, as well. After all that, there as nothing else we could do since we had no other options, and I'm afraid our tempers got the better of us and we told her it was her choice to not eat and be hungry. She then started banging on the table and went screaming down the hallway about being neglected and how she'd take legal action.

I've also heard from my co-workers that she's even said some very cruel and discriminatory things, too, such as telling the Black HCAs to "go back to their jungles" or saying discriminatory remarks about Jews (despite being in a Jewish nursing home). She's even made a couple of other staff members cry because of her comments. We do our best to explain to her that she can't say these things and why we do things the way we do (for example, no meat during breakfast or lunch due to the Jewish law that states dairy and meat cannot be mixed, generally speaking). However, she seems to think that only her opinions matter and wants all the rules changed to suit her. I once overheard her talking to one of the housekeeping staff, demanding that she change the lunch menu to include meat.

Fortunately, I don't work in that area of the facility often, but when I do, I don't know how to respond to her anymore. The other day, I mostly ignored her when she was screaming and answered when she was being polite and more reasonable, but it didn't seem to stop her. Besides, I'm pretty sure it's verbal abuse, especially since she's cognitively aware of what's going on. I'm not the only staff member who is tired of her verbal behaviour and none of us seem to know how to react appropriately. Advice? Similar experiences?

Way similar.  I worked in a nursing home for about 2 years.  We had a resident who would complain all the time.  Nothing was good enough.  She had CHF,so I felt really sorry for her.  That does NOT condone her actions though.  I was the assistant Pysical Therapist.  I had to walk her each day up and down the hall.  I got to wear I hated going into her room.  I didn't put her panty hose on write, I didn't walk her soon enough in the day, etc.  I just blew her complaints off and got through the day as fast as I could when I had to take her on walks.  She could completely walked herself if she wanted to.  There were so many other patients who needed me more. We finally took her off my rotation chart, and she complained about that.  After she died I sort of missed her complaining all the time.  I don't know what advice to give.  Just get through the day or look for another job opportunity.  In long term facilities, you will find there are always complainers.  It is a hard job.  You are trying to do your best by her.  I am proud of you.