THE JANITORS IN OUR HOSPITALS ARE HEROS

For the past five years, I have been working in a large Metropolitan Community Hospital. Two years ago, I was promoted to the director of health and human services. I received a huge raise and I get to drive a company car. Things have always been busy and hectic, but now we are dealing with a huge amount of problems. The hospital is starting to look like the triage in a war zone and everyone is scared to come inside for help. We don’t have enough staff like nurses, doctors, and patient technicians. We don’t have a lot of supplies like gloves, masks, hand sanitizer, and ventilators. Luckily, we have a wonderful housekeeping staff that has been working overtime since the coronavirus started. We used to have housekeepers work during the day, with a few staff members working the evening shift. Ever since the beginning of April, we have had janitorial staff on service twenty-four hours a day and 7 days each week. We had to hire two hundred additional housekeepers to fill all of the needs. The staff works three shifts around the clock, and we are fully staffed at all times. All of the surfaces around the hospital are being wiped down with bleach and sanitizer three times every day. The rooms for our patients are being disinfected regularly and everyone testing positive for Covid-19 is in isolation away from the rest of the hospital. There are a ton of people walking in and out of the hospital doors, but we are doing our best to keep the place clean and free of germs.