Housekeeping is one of the key departments that provide support services in the Hospital. It has a human resource pool of dedicated and professional officers who are posted to various sections of the department. It strives to provide clean, comfortable, and safe environment to our clients. In addition, it provides interior decor for aesthetic appeal during hospital functions.

The Department provides the following services to its clients
. Laundry services
. Tailoring services
. Room stewards
. Admission packs
. Maintenance of curtains, blinders, partitions (bed screens) and mosquito nets
. Floral arrangement.
. Preparation for hospital functions and board meetings.

Laundry Services
The laundry section has state of the art machines that ensure all the linen received for laundering is washed, dried, pressed and dispatched to the respective users on time and in the proper quantities to adequately meet their requirements.

This section has wash extractor machines that are fully automated and programmed to wash each type of linen according to the end use e.g. bed sheets, blankets, uniforms, curtains/partitions, theatre gowns etc so that optimal laundering standards are achieved without damaging the fabric.

A staff operating the laundry machine

The pressing machines involved includes a flat bed ironer, a calendar roller ironer and a steam press ironer that give the garments a proper finish ready for use.

The section runs on a 24 hour day and night shifts, which ensures constant supply of clean and fresh linen to all the clients.

The linen is laundered using industrial laundry detergent, which contains
A disinfectant that ensures all the microbes are eliminated for effective infection prevention and control.
A bleaching agent that removes all the stains.
A softening agent that ensures the texture of the fabric is comfortable for use.
An optical brightener that ensures the natural colors of the fabrics are prominently visible.
The washing, drying and pressing temperatures also ensure that disinfection is attained due to the high temperatures involved.

Clean linen is dispatched to wards three times a day i.e. early morning, afternoon and evening sessions to ensure that patients are always in clean uniform and beddings.

Tailoring Services
This section offers stitching and mending services for hospital linen where in-patients as well as staff and other general hospital linen need for garments is fully met. An example of the garments stitched include
. Neo-natal section mother gowns.
. Psychiatric ward patient uniforms
. Patient gowns.
. Theatre scrubs and gowns for surgeons.
. Abdominal sheets, wrappers and towels for sterilization purposes.
. Hospital bed sheets.
. Curtains, partitions and blinders
Repairing of torn patient uniforms and fitting of measurements for procuring purposes is also done at this section.

The tailoring staff at work

Room Stewards
The room stewards maintain high standards of cleanliness by ensuring that wards, toilets and bathrooms are kept clean for infection prevention and control purposes while providing a comfortable environment for patients to recuperate.

The system of stewardship is modeled along the hotel industry house keeping but packaged to suit a hospital set-up. This system ensures that regular house keeping is done to ensure that wards, toilets and bathrooms are scrubbed clean, dust free, disinfected, ventilated, properly arranged and all curtains/blinders/partitions (bed screens) are clean and well draped to provide privacy to patients.

Goals and objectives

• To offer quality service to clients
• To ensure that quality garments are stitched according to the clients specification and satisfaction
• To ensure that equipment used in the department are utilized properly
• To provide window curtains, partitioning of curtains and mosquito nets
• To encourage staff professional development through training and research