From feeling strange to feeling appreciated
Toni Barkanyi, 40
• Royal Jubilee housekeeper for 9 years • Married, two daughters, ages 22 and 17
After the intubation of a COVID-19 patient — where a tube is inserted through the mouth into the airway, sending aerosolized particles into the negative-pressure room — the specialists leave and housekeeper Toni Barkanyi moves in to wipe the room clean and remove the hazardous waste.
In the intensive care unit, she’s responsible for cleaning the entire area, including patient rooms — washing the linens, removing the garbage, mopping the floors and wiping down all “touch” areas.
“I have to make sure the space is safe,” she said.
In the early days of the pandemic, when she hadn’t yet received instruction from her union on protocols, she followed nurses and doctors in the ICU, listening in on their huddles on how to stay safe. She made sure a nurse watched her don and doff her personal protective equipment, both for her sake and that of patients.
Barkanyi worried about bringing the virus home to her husband and children, but felt a responsibility to do her job as part of a team.
“I felt that they are also my patients,” Barkanyi says. “I clean like I’m cleaning for my family. I can’t think of any other way to do it.”
On the hardest days, she had multiple daily cleans on multiple COVID-19 rooms.
“It’s a long process and it is quite draining, putting on and taking off your personal protective equipment and making sure everything is right, perfect. And then going into the next room and the same routine.”
It took weeks for her to become accustomed to the new protocols and confident that she could keep herself and others safe.
In the early weeks, Barkanyi thought the 7 p.m. cheers for health-care workers had nothing to do with her.
“It was a little strange for me, because I thought this is just for doctors and nurses, you know. Then eventually, over the course of that time, I started hearing more about the behind-the-scenes workers, housekeeping, the instrument cleaners, everybody else. And then I started feeling really appreciated.”
In a COVID-19 patient’s room, there may only be a doctor, respiratory therapist and a nurse, but before and afterwards, there’s a cleaner.
“I’m proud to be a part of that.”