Not many personal support workers (PSW) work in hospitals, at least not in Ontario. In fact, only 7% of them do, according to some sources. However, this is changing. Due to the pandemic, the increasing elderly population in the province, and other reasons; more PSW jobs are being opened in hospitals than ever before, especially in areas like rehabilitation, critical care, and palliative care areas.
In London, Ontario, for instance, the London Health Sciences Centre's (LHSC) employs PSWs in their Critical Care Trauma Center (CCTC) at Victoria Hospital, but they also have PSWs in many areas at University Hospital. There, these caregivers work as part of their Personal Support Worker Resource Team under the direction of a supervisor that oftentimes is a registered nurse (RN) or registered practical nurse (RPN).
It has been demonstrated that, although PSWs don’t provide actual medical care to patients, their support as part of a multidisciplinary team, leads to higher patient satisfaction. Therefore, it can be predicted that hospitals will be hiring more personal support workers in the near future, and not just in areas previously mentioned, but also in Intensive Care Units (ICU), Cardiac Care Units (CCU), dialysis areas, surgical departments, and all other departments where patients need assistance.
When working at a hospital, PSWs are often employed to perform close patient observation and different types of acute care support. What they do is help to support patient care by assisting nurses in tasks like lifting and turning patients. They are also in charge of tasks like cleaning and restocking patient bedsides and helping nurses to manage their supplies and equipment.
What PSWs don’t do, and this is important, is to provide independent patient care, since they are not authorized to do so. Their work is performed exclusively under the direction of regulated healthcare professionals and physicians, in accordance with hospital standards and policies.
These are some of the duties performed by PSWs at hospitals:
Related: PSWs Roles And Responsibilities
Working as a PSW in a hospital comes with several perks that are not as common in other work settings like nursing homes or home care agencies.
As you can see, working as a PSW in a hospital comes with attractive perks. The downside is that currently, there is only a small percentage of these caregivers working in this type of healthcare facility, and the fact that job openings are very limited in hospitals doesn’t help either.
Regardless of the current situation, PSWs that are interested in switching from nursing homes to hospitals are in luck because new positions are opening constantly, so they should keep an eye on these job postings and also register to job matching platforms like us, Caring Support, where they can find new opportunities exclusively in the healthcare field.
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