ATHENS, Greece (AP) – Dressed from head to toe in protective gear, doctors and nurses cling to the patient and fight to keep the coronavirus-infested man alive.
Just behind them, unnoticed and unheard of, a worker in the same protective equipment works a very different task: disinfecting surfaces, collecting waste in bio-hazardous bags, sailing insignificantly past beds and life-supporting machinery to wipe the floor.
The cleaners of coronavirus-intensive care units run a large amount of infection risks on a daily basis to ensure that ICUs run smoothly, and this is critical to prevent the spread of disease in hospitals. But their status as unskilled laborers in a role behind the scenes left them out of the public eye.
While medical personnel worldwide are praised for their lifesaving work during the pandemic, cleaners are rarely mentioned.
They feel ‘like the smallest gear in the wheel, like no one considers us’, one said shortly before embarking on the meticulous process of putting on protective equipment around an ICU at Sotiria Thoracic Diseases Hospital in Athens, Greece’s main treatment center COVID-19, to enter.
She and her colleagues said they were treated well by the medical staff, and they praised the team spirit in the hospital. Cleaners were also included with medical workers in the first wave of coronavirus vaccinations. But outside the hospital gates, she said, the general attitude toward cleaners is, “I have not seen you, I do not know you.”
Some people’s contempt for cleaners is so great that the 50 – year – old mother of two asked to be identified only by her initials, AB, as some family members do not know about her work.
“They would consider it something inferior, the fact that I’m a cleaner,” she said. Some family members also question the risk of working in a COVID-19 ICU and the danger of transmitting the virus to her family, so she avoided telling them what she was doing.
Georgia Tsiolou, who started working as an AB in Sotiria in January 2020, a few months before the pandemic hit Greece, said authorities often talk about hiring more medical staff and offering bonuses and long-term contracts to nurses and doctors . But “there is nothing for us.”
Because they all have one-year contracts, the cleaners do not know if they will have jobs after December.
“People only talk about doctors and nurses. Of course, it is good that they are talking about the doctors and nurses, because they are the ones who are fighting the biggest “against the pandemic,” said colleague Anna Athanassiou (55). But with them there is us. We may not know how to heal someone, but we help a lot in our work. We are a chain. In my opinion, our work is absolutely essential. ”
Medical experts agree and emphasize the importance of cleaning.
‘I can not separate it from medical work or nursing work. It is equally important, ”said Antonia Koutsoukou, professor of intensive care pneumonia, referring to the fight against infections, a major problem in hospitals and especially in ICUs. Koutsoukou is the director of the Clinic for Respiratory Diseases in Athens at Sotiria.
At the start of the pandemic, the hospital’s infectious disease experts trained the cleaners in the use of protective equipment. Now the experienced cleaners are learning new recruits.
For the ICU’s latest cleaner, Theodoros Grivakos, it was difficult to carry the equipment. It includes a mask, glasses and a visor, a hooded suit, double gloves tied to the wrists and plastic covers glued over the feet.
“I chopped down a bit,” the 28-year-old admitted halfway through his first ICU shift. ‘I got dressed. I was dizzy. I felt pressure. I did not feel well. ”
A graduate electrical engineer, Grivakos, did the cleaning work when he could not find work in his field. After being initially assigned to the hospital’s out-of-park areas, the sudden switch to the ICU was a shock.
Working in an ICU, which is an environment of increased stress and emotional pressure, is not like any other job, Koutsoukou said.
Cleaners work very close to patients who may die suddenly, she said. “They are therefore also asked to arm themselves with a lot of emotional courage and calm and to understand the importance of their own role in caring for the seriously ill.”
Some of the cleaners said they were unprepared for the psychological toll of the job, especially since the isolation of COVID-19 patients, who could not receive visitors, often led them to form bonds with hospital staff, including cleaners. .
“It’s very emotional when you’re in there. It is difficult, “said Tsiolou.
The onset of the pandemic was particularly difficult. Faced with a new virus that doctors know little about, the cleaners were terrified of getting sick or carrying the virus home. Many kept away from their families or kept contact to a minimum.
For some, the fear and tension was too much.
“A lot of people were asked to come to work, and they would not come because they were afraid,” Tsiolou said. Many of her colleagues stop and leave cleaners manned briefly.
Those who have stayed despite the risks say they hope for some recognition of their critical role.
“People always think our sector is inferior,” Athanassiou said, adding that she was saddened by the indifference of the public. But the medical staff, according to her, understood.
“They know we are the same as them,” she said. “We are in exactly the same danger, we are not different.”
Grivakos compares the attitude towards cleaners to the treatment of helicopters in ancient Greece, a submissive population of Sparta.
“They are not talking about the (cleaning) staff because we are helots,” he said. “(We) are spent, because one year you are here and the next year you may not be.”