Book Review
Long-Term Companion: Skills for the Certified Nursing Assistant
M G Frazier
ISBN: 0 316 29419 5; 1995; 305 pages; Little, Brown and Coy Boston;
Cath Jones
University of South Australia, Adelaide SA
This somewhat general text is prese~ ted as a series of lists/recipes for skills provision by nurse assistants in what the author calls 'Long-term care'. The care outlined is actually basically suited to any length of care provided. While it has 'What should I do?' and 'Why should I do it?' components, it lacks 'Principles of underlying skills' and/or 'How might I do it?' components which would make this complete for a new student. The book is intended as an adjunct to a training course and thus is limited and not suited as a 'stand alone text'.
It is more suited to the tiered nursing system in North America rather than for care attendants in Australia. Frazier's 'nursing skills' section is problematic in that it purports to train nurse assistants to perform the technical tasks of TPR and BP measurement, fluid balance charting and enemata.
In my view, care attendants in this country (despite many of them being in the throws of training as registered nurses or enrolled nurses in formal nursing courses and supporting their studies by working as nurse assistants) are not sufficiently well educated to carry out their tasks in a clinically responsible manner. Neither are they licensed to in Australia.
These are registered nurse and enrolled nurse responsibilities. Interestingly, basic personal care skills are not included as 'nursing skills' per se in Frazier's text, which seems to reflect her mute acceptance of yet another erosion of a traditional nursing role which is essentially a powerful source of information about the patient'sdinical condition for practising registered nurses. At best, a source book for lecturers preparing sessions for care attendants in this country.
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