Keeping the Hospital clean, however, requires the work of 96 full and part-time staff. The Housekeeping Department is responsible for securing sterile conditions at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital as well as the Extended Care Unit, Agape House, The Montrose Substance Abuse Centre, the Dialysis Unit and all resident doctor and nurse accommodations.

"Our main function,'' said Mrs. Marilyn Branch, head of the Housekeeping Department, "is to keep the Hospital clean, safe and healthy for all patients, staff and visitors.'' The department is open everyday from 8 a.m. until midnight. "And in the evenings, we're on an on-call basis,'' said Mrs. Branch. "Sometimes staff may be called in for emergencies.

"For example, employees may be required if the fire alarms sound or if the Hospital is short of rooms and needs one cleaned immediately.'' The department keeps the entire Hospital sterile. This not only includes visible rooms and hallways but all of the offices and additional facilities in the building.

Housekeeping liaises somewhat with the laundry department. "When we change the curtains in a room, which can be two or three times a day, we pass the dirty ones on to laundry,'' said Mrs. Branch. "We also clean the laundry rooms. And the laundry department sometimes supplies us with products.'' The housekeeping department uses disinfectants throughout the Hospital.

"Some rooms -- like the offices -- don't really require the use of disinfectants,'' said Mrs. Branch. "But we still use them in an effort to keep the entire Hospital sanitary.'' And their work has certainly paid off. Housekeeping recently received an excellent commendation from the Council of Accreditation of Canada. "And the Council only gave us one suggestion,'' said Mrs. Branch.

"They recommended we implement the Workplace Hazardous Material Information System (WHMIS), which is basically training for the safe use of hazardous materials, learning how to use material safety data sheets (MSDA) and labelling disinfectants with the data sheets,'' Mrs. Branch said.

The Housekeeping Department is currently putting together an MSDA training programme for all staff involved. And each department will get a copy of a data sheet for every hazardous material they carry.