![]() “The people who are truly here for the patients are the ones who stayed,” Dimmock said. “And it’s not every day we get thanked for a job well done.”īut for Ward, it’s never been about recognition – even in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic when health systems across the country were hit with staffing shortages. She’s always in a good mood and always willing to help.”Īlthough a clean, sterile environment is critical to the health and safety of patients and providers, “we’re seen as kind of the low man on the totem pole,” Dimmock said of nearly everyone in the cleaning industry. She does things she’s not required to and lifts her coworkers up. “Like escorting someone from the cancer center to the hospital – she’ll never just point in the direction and tell someone who needs help where to go. “I often see her stepping out of her role to help out,” he said. “Just walking her area shortly after I started at Methodist, I could tell immediately she was one of the good ones,” said Russ Dimmock, who’s served as Methodist Hospital’s EVS director for the past three years.īut Dimmock quickly learned that his employee’s assets went far beyond her impeccable self-taught cleaning skills. That’s nothing against any other cleaning tech – our entire EVS staff is great and thorough. “And we can always tell if she’s gone or someone fills in for her. Ward, who’s in charge of cleaning the MECC infusion center, has grown quite a fan base in her 14 years at Methodist. “I applied, they interviewed me, and I got hired right away,” she said with a delighted laugh. In search of a housekeeping job, she applied to be part of the environmental services (EVS) team at Methodist Hospital. In 2008, Ward arrived in Omaha, where her sister was living at the time. The single mother headed for Nebraska with her two teenagers in tow. “It took my mind off things, you know? When I got started doing this or that, it was just kind of – I don’t know – relaxing.”īut after nearly 30 years of cleaning apartments, she yearned for something more. With no housekeeping experience and only a high school education, Ward was put in charge of tidying each room whenever tenant leases were up, developing a remarkable knack for cleaning. She left the Philippines in 1980 at age 20 to chase her American dream – moving to California to help her mother manage an apartment complex. ![]() Ward wasn’t always so keenly aware of her deep-rooted passion for helping others. “Stepping out of your scope of practice if it means helping the patient,” Anderson said. But she knew we really needed her, so she stayed until the situation was covered.”Īnderson, who’s known Ward for nearly a decade, wasn’t surprised by the housekeeper’s actions and said it’s the perfect example of what Methodist is known for. ![]() “In fact, a lot of people probably would have out of fear they’d be in the way. “She definitely could have left,” said one of the nurses, DJ Anderson, BSN, RN. She began clearing the area to make room for response teams while taking direction from the two infusion nurses working. “Like maybe I was meant to be her angel that night.”Īnd when an MECC infusion patient went into respiratory arrest just a few days later, Ward, who’d just started her cleaning shift, quickly switched gears. “I don’t know, I think maybe God sent me to help save her,” said Ward, whose first name means heaven. Ward assisted Methodist security officer Matt Sahlfeld in getting the woman into a wheelchair and across the street to Methodist Hospital’s Emergency Department. I said, ‘Oh, no, no.’ I hugged her and called for security.” “I ran to the door and said, ‘Oh, are you lost? What’s wrong? What do you need?’” Ward said. on a Friday in August when Salina Ward, a cleaning technician at Methodist Estabrook Cancer Center (MECC), heard a knock on a nearby window.Īn elderly woman – dressed in a robe and holding a box of medication – was visibly upset, crying and shaking. ![]()
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