Joyce Harding and Kate Maguire, Domestic Services at SWAH RMG25
IT can be said of any of the staff at the South West Acute Hospital, but it’s no exaggeration to state the cleaning staff of the hospital’s domestic services staff go above and beyond the call of duty each and every day.
Staying on after work hours to chat with the patients they meet on their rounds, spending their tea breaks running errands for the patients, and always having a friendly smile and hello for all who cross their path is par for the course for the dedicated staff.
Two such staff members are Kate Maguire and Joyce Harding, who were both part of the Erne Hospital staff before the big move to SWAH and have almost 30 years experience among them. It’s clear almost immediately from speaking with them that both women find their jobs highly rewarding.
“I work in Ward 2, which is a medical cardiology ward, it would be one of the busiest wards in the hospital. We do the daily cleaning. It’s a tough wee job but we try to do the best we can,” said Ms Maguire, a grandmother from Castlederg.
“It’s not only about cleaning, though. It’s great. From the ward management right down the line, it’s one big team. It’s like one big family. You go out in the afternoon and you feel a good sense of achievement because you’ve left your ward for patients nice and clean and tidy.
“You have to look at it as if you’re doing it because you don’t know if someone belonging to yourself could be coming in. You do build up a good relationship with the patients. You have good banter with them.”
She added: “You do have the downside of the job sometimes, when you see someone very sick. You’re not going to go home and forget about that.
“On the other side of things, it’s great to see someone coming in so sick then going home feeling well and maybe meeting them up the town looking great. You think ‘I was part of that person getting well.’
“You have patients at times and they might have no family, and they might want wee things from the shop and so on. I would tell them if they wait until I’m on break I’ll go down, and sometimes I might ring to my boss and if I ask her nicely she’ll tell me it’s OK, I can go down.”
Enniskillen woman Ms Harding, also a grandmother, works in the high-risk maternity ward, which she said was equally rewarding.
“It can be quite noisy at times, then you hear a baby, and think that’s great, that’s amazing. It’s an emotional ward as well,” she said. “The sad times are very rare, though, they’re few and far between, and it’s mostly happy. I just really enjoy it.”
Both women said they often meet former patients and mothers around the area after they have been discharged from the hospital, which they both enjoy.
Speaking of the changes they had witnessed down through the years, the pair said the biggest change in cleaning was in the modernisation of the products they used, with traditional mops replaced by micro-fibre for example, and the change from the old Erne to SWAH.
“It was sad leaving the old hospital,” said Ms Maguire. “I had been off because I’d had a major operation and I wasn’t meant to be coming back in June, but I came back in May time because I didn’t want to miss everybody moving or miss out on anything.
We were one of the first who were moved over to do the builders’ clean. I remember speaking with a colleague. She was upset when the last person was gone. It was sad.”
Ms Harding agreed: “It was quite emotional leaving the old hospital and coming here because you were thinking am I going to get on, am I going to like it. The old hospital was quite homely and this hospital is more clinical. Obviously it has to move with the times.”
They each added that while some people loved the private rooms at SWAH, other patients, whether elderly medical patients or new mothers, could find them lonely and isolating. As such, both women said they would always take the time to be friendly and helpful for them, often getting the nurse and performing other tasks.
“A smile and a hello makes a big difference,” said Ms Harding, who said hospital could be a scary place for those who had never been before. “If you’re approachable, that lets them know they can chat.”
“Our job is cleaning, but our duty is for the patient,” said Ms Maguire, who added she may even return in a voluntary role when she retired and called for others to do the same.
“Anyone who is retired or has the time, I think it would be a really good thing for them to come and sit with a patient for a short time. Just for a wee chat,” she said.
“I’ve often thought myself that when I retire I’d like to come in and ask the sister on the ward if there were any patients who’d like a wee chat. They like to tell you all about their lives and things. I think when they’re coming to the end of their own lives, some of them, it’s very sad some pass into the next world very lonely.”
The women added not only did they get a lot out of their jobs, but working conditions, including pay and leave, were also very good.
Ms Maguire concluded: “You definitely get a lot out of it, no doubt about it. I think domestic is sort of forgotten about sometimes, but you don’t care because you know what you’ve done.”
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