| Summary: |
Tracy Melucci cleans a hospital for a living.1 Well, sometimes clean is a strong
word. More realistically, she makes her hospital less dirty than it was before. Short
on time, short on resources, and long on responsibilities, she cleans what she can.
And she knows it’s not enough. “Basically, you do the big stuff and then you start
cutting corners,†she says. “You just cannot get it all done. And when I say ‘cutting
corners’ that means bathrooms, offices, hallways. Stuff gets missed.â€
Stuff gets missed. Hospitals across the United States, Canada, and much of
Europe have dramatically changed their approach to housekeeping and other
support work in the last decade, and people are dying as a result. Disinvestment
and outsourcing of hospital cleaning services have left hospitals less hygienic and
more vulnerable to the spread of hospital-acquired infections.
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