Well, we're actually an assisted living facility, not a nursing home. At night, we do the laundry and night med reminders (it's a technicality, since CNAs can't dispense medication, but we can put it on the counter for them to get to... I don't know, I don't get the difference) and answer Sara alarms. We're mainly here in case of emergency and are the ONLY staff in the building overnight. The Sara alarm is a pendant that the residents wear so that if they're having an emergency or can't get to the phone and need us, they can get a hold of us. We're required to answer the alarms as quickly as possible, for obvious reasons.
There's a threshold that the residents have to meet before they can move into the building. For example, they have to be able to transfer themselves from bed to chair, chair to bed, etc. Obviously, there are times when someone who normally can transfer themselves needs a hand, but that doesn't change their eligibility. Any residents who need injections or Accuchecks for blood sugar either have to be able to do it themselves, or it has to be able to be scheduled while the nurse is here, as CNAs don't do injections in Illinois, and Accucheck varies by facility. Residents with oxygen need to be able to maintain it themselves. As we're an assisted living facility, residents need to have a certain level of independence in order to be considered here.
We have a few residents with mental difficulties, but for the most part, everyone here is lucid. We don't take people who are in, for example, advanced stages of dementia. If a resident
does by chance drop below that threshold for whatever reason, they're sent to a SNF (nursing home) until they can be reevaluated and come home. One of our residents has been in a SNF for about three months now because her balance is so poor (she always requires assistance in transfers, which is hard because she's so heavy that she sometimes needs three people, especially if she's fallen), she's incontinent, and was having breaks with reality. Her doctor has asked for an evaluation to see if she can come back, but I don't think she'll be able to.
I mean, yeah, we mostly just screw around at night, but if anything
should happen, we're here. We haven't had a Sara alarm all night. We had one yesterday and that was just because a resident rolled over and hit it with her elbow. For the most part, it's very quiet at night, but we do get the crazy nights every once in a while.
If you want, I can PM you the website for the facility I work at
I guess I just look at it as, well, my grandfather died in a nursing home. He spent the last few years of his life there because my grandmother just couldn't care for him anymore, and she always said that the staff at his home was amazing. She kept volunteering there after he'd passed. But in my mind, working here and at the other facility, I just kept thinking "What if this was my grandparent/parent/sibling?" Apparently I'm more empathetic than most of my former coworkers 
