To cel­e­brate Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices Week, we asked EVS lead­ers to share sto­ries about their depart­ments and offer their praise. Here are the good vibes we received.

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“It is dif­fi­cult to pin­point a sin­gle sto­ry that would encom­pass the great­ness of our Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vice staff here at Louisville, KY. There are too many to choose only one!

This year has proved to be excep­tion­al­ly chal­leng­ing. It is tru­ly remark­able that we have stayed the course and con­tin­ue to pro­vide safe and clean envi­ron­ments for our patients and fel­low staff. This wouldn’t be pos­si­ble with­out the staff’s com­mit­ment to patient care. We have sev­er­al employ­ees that have expressed no fear in deal­ing with unknowns dur­ing the cur­rent pan­dem­ic. Team mem­bers con­tin­ue to rise up to unique chal­lenges dai­ly that ensure a time­ly room turnover and con­tin­u­ance of patient care.

The same could be said every year, but this year’s cel­e­bra­tion will only scratch the sur­face of praise that our team deserves for a job well done. All of our staff have indi­vid­ual sit­u­a­tions that would make for a great sto­ry, but it is the col­lab­o­ra­tive hard work of every­one that sep­a­rates our team from the rest.”

Daniel Rad­abaugh
Depart­ment Sup­port Assis­tant
Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices
UofL Hos­pi­tal — Jew­ish Cam­pus

 

“Work­ing at NMC Job Options, Inc., I decid­ed to tell you the one sto­ry that could nev­er be for­got­ten. No mat­ter their strug­gles with work or at home, [our employ­ees] have all learned to speak freely and clear­ly and shy away from neg­a­tiv­i­ty. They have grown into one Strong Team, One JOI Fam­i­ly and with the sup­port of the US Mil­i­tary. They engage in pro­fes­sion­al con­ver­sa­tions and they engage the Mil­i­tary by stay­ing Unit­ed, as our Amer­i­c­as always have. Despite their dis­abil­i­ties, they use their dis­abil­i­ties to teach oth­ers how to improve our site in over­all clean­li­ness and prop­er dis­in­fect­ing dai­ly, night­ly and peri­od­i­cal­ly. [I have passed up] so many oth­er oppor­tu­ni­ties for the love of our JOI Team and their spir­its. This is their home, our home and it is Clean!!!”

Richard Wilk­er­son, C.H.E.S.T.
E.V.S. Qual­i­ty Assur­ance Man­ag­er
E.V.S. Assis­tant Project Man­ag­er
Job Options, Inc.

 

“It is with great hon­or and plea­sure that I con­tin­ue to lead this group of 160 House­keep­ing Atten­dants that with dai­ly fear, con­cern, wor­ries, doubt­ful­ness, and stress they con­tin­ued to all come to work on a dai­ly basis to pro­vide the best ser­vice pos­si­ble to all our mem­bers and hos­pi­tal staff. They were asked to do a mil­lion things every day with con­stant changes whether in poli­cies or process­es, and yet they con­tin­ued to keep all of us safe every day. They had their own per­son­al lives or fam­i­lies to wor­ry about dai­ly, but yet they con­tin­ued to help Kaiser Per­ma­nente thrive through these chal­leng­ing times. They are my unsung heroes hid­ing in the dark, but always will­ing and able to take on all chal­lenges or pan­demics. They come to work with a smile and leave with a smile, as they know that today they helped save a life of some­one at KWLA. They are tru­ly the KWLA Envi­ron­men­tal Super­heroes.”

Fabri­cio N. Mar­tinez, T‑CHEST
Direc­tor of Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices
Kaiser Per­ma­nente West Los Ange­les Med­ical Cen­ter

 

“Our depart­ment has had its share of chal­lenges with employ­ees being quar­an­tined and try­ing to keep up with every­thing chang­ing from day-to-day. We and our staff were scared. The FEAR of the UNKNOWN is unset­tling. Hav­ing to trust upper man­age­ment that every­thing they are telling us to do was right was a leap of faith. I would tell them in our morn­ing Hud­dle all we have to do is PRAY, have FAITH, TRUST, and BELIEVE in GOD. That he will guide and pro­tect us through this. We have been pushed to our lim­its from work­ing long hours, being tired, stressed to the point where at times seemed there was no light at the end of the tun­nel. But, our staff have come togeth­er to the point where they are no longer afraid of COVID.”

Den­nis Moore (Direc­tor), Pamela Erwin (Super­vi­sor)
Envi­ron­men­tal Ser­vices Depart­ment
PMC Pasadena,TX