In her hands: the work of a hospital janitor during a pandemic
 
 
Courtesy: Suheir Harara
 

“I grab everything that could potentially be infectious, wash it, and sanitize it well. I follow the infection control guidelines, and hope that God protects me,” said Rawia Abdallah, a janitor at the Abbasseya Chest Hospital. Abdallah, who goes by Um Atef, tells us how she tries to avoid contracting the novel coronavirus, given her proximity to doctors and nurses who treat suspected COVID-19 cases in the intensive care unit. 

For 12 years, Um Atef,  who is 57 years old, has worked six days a week in the ICU from 8 am to 6 pm. Since March 16, however, the hospital has condensed her weekly tasks into three days a week in compliance with the prime minister’s decision to reduce the number of people in government workplaces to curb the spread of the virus. 

The Abbasseya Chest Hospital receives patients from Cairo and neighboring governorates who are suspected of having COVID-19. Once a person’s test result is confirmed positive, the Health Ministry sends an ambulance to drive them to one of the quarantine hospitals. If the test result is negative, the person gets admitted to the hospital for treatment. 

“The first thing I do is take all the laundry to the washing machine,” says Um Atef. This includes all the bedsheets, covers and blankets as well as the hospital gowns that patients wear in the ICU. 

“After that, I wash the jars and aspirators.” The second task for Um Atef is to clean the containers used for suctioning the patient’s chest fluids and secretions. She disinfects them before sending them to the sterilization department. 

Her third task is cleaning and sterilizing urinary catheters. The fourth is thoroughly cleaning and disinfecting the floors with diluted chlorine solution every two hours. There is a fifth task if a patient is released from the ICU or dies, which is to wash the bed they had been in and its air mattress with pure chlorine and send the mattress to the sterilization department. 

“My job is difficult. But thank God, I have been able to avoid infection all those years,” says Um Atef. She believes that wearing masks and gloves and following “Miss Fatma’s” guidelines on preventative measures will protect her from contracting COVID-19, the same way she was protected from all viruses and epidemics that she witnessed throughout the past 12 years. “Miss Fatma, who heads infection control, gives us a lecture every day, and I follow what she says. I wash my hands very well. I always wear two medical gowns, a tarp apron, a mask, and gloves before touching anything. I change my gloves after everything I do, wash my hands again and wear new ones,” explains Um Atef. 

Even though Um Atef, who is heeding all personal protection guidelines, feels reassured by the preventative measures that Abbasseya Chest Hospital is enforcing, she still took more aggressive measures to ensure that her children and grandchildren do not contract the virus. “I have eight children and 18 grandchildren. From the minute that the coronavirus emerged in Egypt, I told them not to visit each other until the crisis subsides, and I forbade them from visiting me. I don’t visit them either, and we check up on each other over the phone, so that they don’t infect me and I don’t infect them,” says Um Atef. 

Um Atef is approaching retirement age, but she hopes to continue to work beyond the age of 60. “I feel happy when a patient recovers. If I live and continue to be in good health after retirement age, I will continue to work and be in the service of patients,” she adds. 

Sometimes Um Atef gets to know patients. She recalls a woman in late pregnancy who was admitted to the quarantine section of the hospital in critical condition during the swine flu outbreak. “She was placed on a ventilator twice. I felt so bad for her. But she recovered and left the hospital, and we checked on her after she delivered the baby. She had a beautiful baby girl and made a full recovery.”

“For six years, I worked for a daily wage of 10 pounds. Six years ago, they made my position in the hospital permanent, with a monthly salary of LE1,550. Every two or three months, I get a bonus of LE300.” Um Atef finds her job — less than the 2,000 minimum wage that President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced last year — to be a refuge from loneliness and financial hardship. Last week, the president issued a decree raising allowances for working conditions and extending bonuses to medical staff but did not specify whether cleaning staff like Um Atef would be included in the measures.

 “I’m grateful to God, and I don’t want anything other than God protecting us from the pandemic,” she says.

“We survived the bird flu and the swine flu, and God willing we will survive the coronavirus.” Um Atef hopes that the pandemic passes and becomes a memory. 

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