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- I could be a housekeeper anywhere,
but I chose Akron Children's
because I like to see the kids get healthy and go home
and grow into young healthy adults.
- I would say the ideal housekeeper here
would be someone who's friendly and compassionate,
has a lot of empathy for other people.
- The job description is pretty much clean everything,
pick up, pay attention to details.
- A typical day for me is the ICU, I knock on the door,
I greet the parents and the patient,
ask them is it okay to come in, I pull the trash.
I'm from housekeeping, I'm gonna clean your room today,
is that okay with you?
Yeah?
- I'm going to high dust, it's important to do that
to make sure that the environment is clean,
and then another thing, it minimizes the dust
and different allergens that can be in the rooms.
And then after that, you will take a sanitizer rag,
and you literally will wipe everything,
like the door knobs, the bed, the sink, the countertops.
- I run the dust mop on the floors,
I do all the edges around the corridors.
Then I run a T3, it's a floor machine, it's a wet machine.
- With the office space, I vacuum,
I also clean inside their restrooms.
I just detail and wipe everything down.
The counters, the fixtures.
Why I enjoy cleaning the bathroom,
because it's nothing like a clean bathroom.
- You're not just gonna be cleaning,
you're gonna be interacting with kids and parents.
I like fries with a lot of ketchup on it.
You like ketchup?
- You have to be outgoing and communicate,
hi how you doing?
Are these your sister and brother?
- [Patient] Yeah.
- Hi, kids.
- [Kids] Hi.
- Are you guys getting ready to leave,
I see you packed up.
- The mom's used to seeing me,
the kids used to seeing me,
hey I'm looking forward to seeing
my housekeeper Samarra today.
And then the bad part is, sometimes they don't make it,
they're not doing well, they don't get better,
and they have to come back because they're sicker.
And it just tugs on my heart, having a kid of my own.
- If you're not used to seeing sick kids,
it's rough to come in and you see children that have cancer
and they don't have hair,
or you go in the burn unit and a child that's little
is completely with third-degree burns all over their body,
it's a big adjustment to see.
- Sometimes when people come in,
they don't realize that they're going to have clean up
blood and vomit and other things
that go along with being a pediatric hospital.
- You have a pager and you know,
things happen at a hospital, things spill.
- So I could be in the middle of mopping to hey Samarra,
can you come pull the trash over here in the ICU?
- So rooms come back to back, maybe 14 a night.
It's a fast paced hospital, you have to keep up.
- One of the benefits that keeps me here
is the tuition reimbursement.
- The hospital will reimburse you up to $5,250 annually
to cover the cost of tuition and books,
even if you're part time.
- I'm doing EMT, Emergency Medical Technician.
- I wanna work with pediatric nursing one day,
I'm in school for that.
There's a lot of growth within this hospital.
A lot of people worked in this department are now nurses.
- In five years I see myself being an EMT Technician
here at Akron Children's.
- Children's also offers health insurance,
which we saved our family $300 a month, which was huge.
Even part time, I get all of that and a retirement plan.
- When you're applying, you fill out an online application.
It's important for the hospital to provide
a tobacco-free environment for our patients
and their families, which is why we do the urine screen
for not only drugs, but nicotine and tobacco as well.
When you come in for your employee health visit,
they will take copies of your vaccination records
and give you any additional vaccinations
that are required in order to work here,
including a flu shot.
- Culture at Akron Children's is fun
because number one, it's a kid's hospital.
- Down to the walls that are just so vibrant and happy,
it just makes you happy just being there.
- And once a year, we get super heroes
that come and do the windows of the hospital.
- You even will pass by Disney princesses,
you'll see pets, dogs, and horses.
I mean, you don't get that at any other job.
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