Reply With QuoteShe sounds like a wonderful person as well as a wonderful CNA.
http://napervillesun.suntimes.com/li...assistant.html
Emma Claessens has a simple philosophy when it comes to caring for patients. And after three decades as a certified nursing assistant, she has proven it’s the perfect remedy for those in need.
“A long time ago, I decided to put myself in their position — how would I want to be treated if I was the patient?” said Claessens, 73. “That is how I have looked at it all these years, and that’s the basis for what I do. I treat people how I would want to be treated.”
Claessens recently was honored for 30 years of service by Home Care Personal Services, a Naperville agency that provides in-home assistance for clients needing short-term or long-term care.
“Emma is one of those employees you wish you could clone,” said Henrietta Hughes, president and owner of Home Care Personal Services. “She is dependable, honest, trustworthy, compassionate, and joyfully endears herself to every one of her clients and to us. We don’t know what we would do without Emma; she is still working tirelessly when most at her age would be retired.”
Claessens was a mother of three young children when she decided to become certified as a nursing assistant. Now 30 years later, she is still going strong, in a job that she had been training for long before that.
“Being a mother, you take care of other people — that’s what mothers do,” she said. “I learned so much of what I do from life and from taking care of my own family. I enjoy taking care of people, and I get a lot of satisfaction out of knowing I have contributed to their lives.”
And it shows. Besides receiving accolades from her employer, former patients praise the caregiver.
“She was there to help when I needed it, and without the care, I would not be where I am today,” said Arlene, 74, who suffered a mild stroke in 2004. “There are a lot of seniors that need this kind of service. Many of us want to stay in our homes as long as we can, and sometimes we need help to do that.”
In-home services can include cleaning, laundry, preparing meals or running errands. Arlene has fully recovered and is proud to call Claessens a friend.
“I couldn’t make it up the stairs, or reach things in the cabinets,” Arlene said. “Emma is very dependable and always helpful with whatever I needed.”
Throughout her years of service, Claessens has experienced life’s joys and sorrows, caring for clients’ newborn babies, aging parents and grandparents.
“I have been to weddings and wakes,” Claessens said. “You are an extended part of the family — you are there when the family cannot be there. You get to be their daughter, their sister, their mother, part of the family.”
She sounds like a wonderful person as well as a wonderful CNA.
Awesome story. Thanks for the post!
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