“They won’t let visitors in yet, and personally, I feel really bad for the residents. So, I always say good morning when I go into their rooms and talk to them a little bit.
One resident was crying because he missed his wife. I talked to him and calmed him down. I felt so bad for him. He was crying, and my heart just broke.
I’ve been an HEU member for 20 years, and I’m a Laundry Worker. I did four years in housekeeping, and then went back to the laundry.
I start my shift at six o’clock. I go up to our seniors’ home, and pick up their personal linen. I come down, I sort it, and put my first load in the washer.
Then, I go to the conveyor belt on the ‘dirty side’ and start sorting the linen for my co-workers out front on the ‘clean side’. They need things like flannel blankets.
After lunch, I go back to the ‘clean side’ and start folding the linens for the seniors’ home, including residents’ personal clothing. I then deliver the clean items to everybody’s room.
I also do the tagging for residents’ personal clothing, as well as some minimal repairs on their clothes.
It’s become a lot busier since COVID. The whole hospital has more linens. The increase that we noticed was in the mops, the rags, the scrubs. I think those are the only three that were the major things we couldn’t keep up with for a while.
When we’re on the ‘dirty side’, we gown up and wear double rubber gloves for added protection. We have a head bonnet and face mask. But once we go to the ‘clean side’, all that stuff comes off. Sometimes, I’ll wear gloves depending on what I’m touching.
Patient care comes first. It’s rewarding when I provide clean linens to the floors so the patients can be cared for, and when I deliver personal clothing to the residents so they can have clean clothes and dress nicely.
That’s when you know you’ve done your job, and you can feel good about it.”
- Brenda, Laundry Worker, part of the health care team