• Caring, compassionate, and professional attitude
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills
• Critical thinking, critical inquiry, and clinical judgement for decision-making
• Demonstrate professional judgement
• Ability to work collaboratively with others on the healthcare team
• Commitment to life-long learning
• Demonstrate formal and informal leadership in practice
• Reliability and dependability

In hospital settings :

• Answering call signals; supplying and emptying bed pans; bathing, dressing and grooming patients; serving meal trays, feeding or assisting in feeding of patients and assisting patients with menu selection; weighing, lifting, turning, and positioning patients; shaving patients prior to operations; supervising patients’ exercise routines, setting up and providing leisure activities for patients, accompanying patients on outside recreational activities and performing other duties related to patient care and comfort
• Taking patients’ blood pressure, temperature and pulse; reporting or recording fluid intake and output; observing or monitoring patients’ status and documenting patient care on charts; administering first aid in emergency situations; collecting specimens such as urine, faeces or sputum; administering suppositories, colonic irrigations and enemas and performing other procedures as directed by nursing and hospital staff
• Transporting patients by wheelchair or stretcher for treatment or surgery
• Carrying messages, reports, requisitions and specimens between departments
• Making beds and maintaining patients’ rooms
• Maintaining inventory of supplies
• May perform maintenance tasks such as assisting with the set-up and maintenance of traction equipment, cleaning or sterilizing equipment, maintaining and repairing equipment, and assembling, setting-up and operating job-related equipment
• May transport patients between care facilities.

In nursing homes and adult residential facilities settings:

• Providing care and companionship for individuals and families during periods of incapacitation, convalescence or family disruption
• Administering bedside and personal care to clients such as aid in ambulation, bathing, personal hygiene, and dressing and undressing
• Planning and preparing meals and special diets, and feed or assist in feeding clients
• May perform routine health-related duties such as changing non-sterile dressings, assisting in the administration of medications and collecting specimens under the general direction of home care agency supervisor or nurse
• May perform routine housekeeping duties such as laundry, washing dishes and making beds.

The work week of a personal support worker varies. Depending on where they are employed, personal support workers may work shifts that include evenings, nights, weekends, and holidays.

• Hospitals
• Nursing homes and adult residential facilities
• Extended care facilities

Education programs offered in New Brunswick:

• New Brunswick Community College (NBCC) – English program
• Collège Communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick (CCNB) – French program
• Eastern College – English Program

Personal Support Workers provide care to those in need and fill a key position in the labour market. WorkingNB may cover tuition for individuals pursuing an education in this area. Training programs are available throughout the province.