“Not only do we clean up after patients, but we clean public areas too. We make sure anything people touch in the hospital isn’t going to hurt them.
I’m a Housekeeping Room Attendant, working on a general medicine ward.
It’s a lot of wiping things down, keeping the dust out. There’s heavy foot traffic, so there’s a lot of dirt on the floor and common places that are constantly being touched by everyone, so I have to clean things over and over.
There’s six private rooms on my ward and some four-bed rooms. We normally keep a few beds empty, specifically right now for COVID.
The COVID-19 outbreak hasn’t changed my job much. I clean just as hard and put just as much effort into it. I would clean for someone with a common cold the same way I would for someone with COVID.
We use a stronger, different chemical for a terminal clean, and we have to completely dress up in the proper PPE gear. But they put signs up to let us know what we’re dealing with and the type of PPE needed.
I just took a leave of absence because I have three kids at home, and I had to get them caught up on their schoolwork.
At first, my 16-year-old son was taking care of the other two, but that meant he had to mind them, make sure they got their homework done, make sure they had lunch, on top of having to complete his own studies. He was amazing and never complained, but it was not an ideal situation and they needed me home.
They’re in different schools because of their age, and use different programs. My daughter participates in Zoom meetings twice a week. My 14-year-old son does Google Classroom. And my oldest son does his reading and writing, and a program called JavaScript.
It’s funny because I’m always hounding my kids about spending too much time in front of a screen, but now I’m encouraging them to socialize with their friends online and play their games. Having this technology has actually made it a lot easier than how it would have been without it.”
- Liza, Housekeeper, part of the health care team