Cleaner hospitals

Before I left the UK I remember that 'Cleaner Hospitals' had become a new political catch phrase, along with 'tougher on crime' and 'small class sizes' etc. I also remember when the previous government privatised hospital cleaning in the UK. As I recall they basically sacked all the cleaners on Friday and by Monday same people were hired by the new cleaning companies but were paid less money, it was one of those great advertisements for the motivational attributes of the open market.

Well, the Eastern Cape government can now claim to be ahead of the UK government on both counts. Until recently the hospital was cleaned by a group of generally older women who mopped the floors with various degrees of enthusiasm and kept it reasonably clean. However, someone somewhere decided to contract out the hospital cleaning to a private firm. So one day a whole new army of cleaning staff clad in heavy grey uniforms weilding yellow signs with flashing lights on top started patrolling the corridors. There are so many of them that it can be an obstacle course getting from one ward to another but the place is looking pretty spick and span. I don't think people have to worry too much about hospital super-bugs around here anymore- so one up for the Eastern Cape.

The killer move however is that instead of sacking the old ladies or making them carry yellow signs with flashing lights they just continued to employ them. They have been farmed out to some of the peripheral wards in droves, they now seem to have even more time for gossip and seem to be loving it. This means that since privatisation we effectively now have two complete teams of hospital cleaners working on the same hospital at the same time and no-one has been sacked or had their pay cut. Now why didn't the UK government think of that?