Hospital housekeepers are heroes, too
Highland Hospital, a public institution that serves the homeless, the uninsured and the working poor, wouldn’t be able to operate without Derrick Boutte and his team. Boutte’s work is critical to saving lives, but he’s not a doctor or a nurse. He works in the environmental services department. Boutte’s a housekeeper.
He strips soiled sheets from beds. He wipes and sanitizes surfaces and equipment in rooms — from the emergency room to patient rooms to break rooms. He changes trash can liners and disposes of biomedical waste.
Anything he touches in the hospital could be contaminated. And if he’s not careful, anything he touches in the hospital could become contaminated.
As the coronavirus wreaks havoc across the country, housekeepers are indispensable because not only do hospitals have to care for the expected surge of sick patients, they must also stop the virus from running rampant in their facilities. And that’s housekeeping’s job.
Housekeepers are heroes, too.
Now think about this: If there’s a shortage of personal protective equipment for doctors and nurses in America, what must it be like for housekeepers, food service workers and other hospital departments staffed predominantly by people of color, like at
Highland?
“Unfortunately, the COVID19 has just put a magnifying glass on the inequalities that we face as a country, particularly for people of color,” said Liz Ortega, executive secretarytreasurer of the Alameda Labor Council, which represents workers in health care, education, construction and other fields.
Boutte’s concerned that all workers on the front lines don’t have what they need to stay protected.
“If not for us, doctors, nurses — every individual there — will not be protected,” he said. “It’s just a challenge knowing you’re looked at as not being as important as you really are.”
Hospitals run on lowwage workers who are essential to patient safety, Rebecca Kolins Givan, a labor studies and employment relations professor at Rutgers University, told me.
“If somebody who is responsible for cleaning the room or doing laundry or bringing meals to patients isn’t serious about hygiene and infection control, there’s a patient safety hazard,” she said.
Boutte, an Oakland native, has worked at the East Oakland hospital for 20 years. The hospital is part of Alameda Health System, which is run by a Board of Trustees appointed by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.
Last week, nurses created their own protective equipment by cutting holes in trash bags because they weren’t given protective gowns. In a statement, Alameda Health System said that it is conserving the use of personal protective equipment and other resources to ensure availability if there’s a significant patient surge.
“Environmental services is vital to the prevention of serious infections and the efficient running of the hospitals and clinics,” the statement said. “They play an important role in the care of the patients and a critical part of the care delivery team. If EVs were not able to execute on their roles, the health system would truly screech to a halt.”
It still might, because Boutte says for years Alameda Health System has steadily cut environmental services positions. According to Boutte, there used to be two to three housekeepers per floor per shift. Now there’s one. And to prevent crosscontamination, he’d normally change gowns before he entered a new room to clean. Now he’s using the same gown and mask for an entire shift.
“As minority workers from the community that we serve, we always feel like we’re expendable,” Boutte, 50, said. “You got one person trying to cover multiple areas, so the hospital is not even getting cleaned.”
Some departments at the hospital, like food and nutrition, have been told they don’t need masks.
“They don’t believe that we’re being exposed to this virus as much as doctors and nurses,” said Craig Smith, a chef who’s been cooking and serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at Highland for 11 years.
The 31yearold Oakland native who lives with his parents, brother and nephew wants to make sure he doesn’t infect them.
“We need to secure everyone who’s an employee within the hospital to guarantee everyone’s safety,” Smith said. “I’m willing to go to war, but provide me the materials I need.”
Months before the pandemic, Ortega said the union reached out to each supervisor to discuss worker and supply shortages.
“Prior to all of this, we were going in to talk about the lack of supplies, the lack of gloves, the lack of sanitation,” she said. “And now it’s just exploded.”
Supervisor Nate Miley told me he believes what frontline employees are saying.
“We’ve had many conversations with labor in terms of their concerns with the structure and the governance at AHS,” Miley said. “In fact, labor is pushing for that whole model to be restructured, and they were pushing for that prior to the pandemic. As a result of the pandemic, they’re even more focused on that happening.”
When Boutte gets home, he takes his uniform off in the backyard, stuffing his clothes into a bag like he does sheets from a bed at work. He’d like to see more of his teenage daughters, who attend college in Atlanta, but they’re staying with their grandparents in Sacramento.
“That’s the best thing for them,” Boutte said. “We just want to make sure that they’re protected.”