There are a few jobs that are hard on your own mental state, physical being and sanity but yet still rewarding at the same time. That is working as a health care assistant in mental health in a hospital setting. I have done it for about 20 years and still doing it today (for now).
The job can be very stressful on you and you can end up thinking why the hell do I do this job? Surely there are better jobs out there? Answer because you are made for this job and there is no better job out there. It takes a certain type of person to work in mental health. I mean some one that is not judgemental, not self opinionated, a great listener and actually gives a shit about people no matter what.
In my job I have been told things by patients that would horrify the everyday public; we have to keep level headed and not judge.
People think it has lots of perks;NO it doesn’t. Don’t get me wrong helping others, bringing people out of a bad place in their own mind or world gives you a kind of wellbeing and achievements. Hearing those two words, Thank you, just makes it all worth it. It’s an amazing feeling when you see a patient change from when they were admitted to being discharged to either home or a new placement. Yet sometimes there are low times when the treatment doesn’t seem to have any affect on them.
For the health care assistance out there it is a great rewarding job. Stressful, painful, yet rewarding career to be in but it also could be a dead end job in the wrong place. There will be chances for lots of training to deal with patients, aggression, emergencies and many more situations. If you want to learn about different kinds of people, life, bad upbringings, the kind of nasty people that are out there, how to read potential risk situations then go into health care in mental health.
I have learnt so much in my job as a health care worker with in a hospital and have so much information and teaching to pass on. I think something like blogging is the only way I could do it now. Don’t let anyone in your job talk down to you. People don’t realise that the health care assistance are the front line troops in a ward setting. The patient will usually trust and form therapeutic relationships with health care assistance before anyone else. The patients will open up to you first and disclose things to you before qualified nurses or doctors. You are the eyes and ears of the ward and if people want to know something about the patients, you can guarantee the information would of come from a health care assistant first. Health Care Assistants are the backbone of the hospitals and wards; it needs to be recognised throughout the services whether it be NHS or private charity hospitals.
Motivational things 