Why not come and join hospital ‘cleaners’?

From Alison Yates.

I WOULD like to invite your correspondent John Dix (JEP, 16 February) who asked why hospital cleaners are paid £10 an hour to undertake some of the duties the hospital ‘cleaners’ have to do.

First of all, they are fully trained housekeepers who are part of the ward team. Some of their duties include food service which means they have to have dietary knowledge for some complex medical conditions.

Deep cleaning that is undertaken after infections, which include MRSA, Norovirus, HIV, C.Dif, TB, etc. all have different cleaning methods. This is on top of their normal work. The majority of infections occur when a patient has attended a UK hospital where the ‘cleaners’ are out sourced and paid a pittance. Which Mr Dix advocates.

Cleaning is undertaken in very difficult circumstances on a very busy ward with seriously ill people, often dealing with emotional patients and relatives. They have to clean up every bodily fluid you can imagine. There are two housekeepers on a busy ward where everything has to be cleaned in a short space of time with minimal inconvenience to patients, 365 days a year. The list of their duties is too long to print here.

The cleaners who you refer to in the ‘real world’ probably work for an agency and clean empty offices and houses and I know for a fact that freelance cleaners get £10-12 per hour.

Is Mr Dix implying that the hard backbreaking work I refer to is not real?

They are proud of the work they do and, try to make the patient’s stay as pleasant as possible. They pay their taxes like everyone else and are worth every penny, ask any doctor or surgeon and they will tell you the hospital couldn’t function without them.

Mr Dix, should save his vindictiveness for those who refuse to work.

He seems to want to penalise and politicise their work, and make them scapegoats for the economic mess we are all in.