Editor, The News:

Isn’t it nice to read about the new Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre in the last couple of weeks? Pig pen, scary and disgusting cleanliness our good citizen’s Shirley Park and B. Frederickson say, and other people are ready to verbally slam the staff, especially the cleaners.

I’m sure they sat down and thought long and hard about what it takes to open a new hospital and the organization it takes to transfer the old one to the new.

Since the new hospital has only been open for one month on Sept. 24, I think it is shaping up really nicely and I take great offence to our good citizens wanting to replace me because they figure me and my co-workers are not doing our jobs. We mostly take pride in what we’ve accomplished.

I would like to inform the citizens as to what it really takes. During post construction every window, door, ceiling, floor and walls and anything attached to them – meaning the exit signs, the door hardware, light fixtures and switches, signs and every nut, bolt, nook and cranny – in the hospital was washed, disinfected and sterilized over and over again just to get rid of the never ending dust from the construction, and then repeated again and again.

We walked the endless corridors, patient rooms and offices scraping tar, paint and what have you off the floors so they could be waxed.

In the two weeks prior to opening day every patient’s room was sterilized from ceiling to floor, every bed made and curtains hung.

A week before the opening the never ending trucks arrived with thousands of pallets carrying the old hospital’s supplies, new supplies and whatever else that is needed to get the hospital up and running for opening day. Damage is inevitable with a move of this magnitude.

It’s been one month since the transferring of patients to ARHCC, and the process of putting a new hospital together is still going on.

Excuse us for overlooking a dent in a wall or a mark on the floor because we believe that the patients’ care is the first priority. When you slam the cleaners you are slamming the owners, management, doctors, nurses, technicians, food services, volunteers and the suppliers and their staff that have worked diligently to put this hospital together.

The organization of this hospital is still going on and will take more time yet as all departments, MSA staff and new ARHCC staff work out the bugs to make it an effective running hospital.

The next time S. Parks or B. Frederickson needs to visit us, please call me personally, I’ll make it my duty to follow you around with a cloth, mop and pail to clean your fingerprints that you’ve left on the door window as you leave, the gum wrapper or what have you that feel you need to clean from your pockets in the elevator when you think no one is watching, and I’ll be following right behind you to clean up the black marks that your shoes leave while you get to where you’re going in OUR new hospital.

D.Deakin, S. Neuls, K. Parmer, K. Corrigan, T. Homan, C. Green, S. Shogren, T. Taylor, S. Lochrie, J. Davidson, E. Truscott, J. Boyd

Proud to be the Cleaners and Part of the Sodexo Team