I’m helping to save lives, says UHWI cleaner
THEY may not come readily to mind when one thinks of heroes on the front line of the COVID-19 fight, but the cleaning staff in overburdened hospitals wear their capes just as well as doctors and nurses.
Forty-eight-year-old Michelle Bailey, who has been working as part of the cleaning crew in the health-care system for 18 years, knows that only too well. She is currently a housekeeper at the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI).
“I love my job dearly because I’m helping to saves lives and the patients tell me how grateful they are for us,” she told the Jamaica Observer. “I always do my best to care for these patients because they are people with families just like us.”
She is just one of the often overlooked heroes at the country’s health-care facilities who make sure patients’ rooms remain sanitary and safe.
Bailey admitted that the last few months have been exhausting.
“Most time I start work at seven in the night and I don’t stop work until four in the morning. I have to prepare myself and just know that my service is needed so I can’t take any breaks,” she said. “Sometimes I am at the hospital for three days working double shift because every second [there] is another patient and the outbreak see us dealing with a lot more patients.”
The high volume of patients means she and her colleagues at Milestone Environmental Limited clean each room that houses COVID patients more than three times throughout the day, she said.
“We have to clean the floors, sanitise the patient’s bed, their toilet, empty laundry and garbage bins,” she explained. “We as housekeepers also have to be in our personal protective equipment (PPE) and it is hot. [But] when we sweat we can’t even touch our bodies.”
There is another vital element to her job: Helping to get oxygen to patients fighting to breathe.
“Every 30 minutes we have to be rolling out oxygen because [the hospital] is over [capacity] right now. When I bring oxygen to room one, by you know it oxygen is needed in room two or three. It is just never-ending,” she shared.
As at August 31, the number of hospitalised COVID-19 patients stood at 767, with 88 severely ill and 60 in critical condition.
