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Working in the Laminar Flow Room at Albany Medical Center
By Franklyn Gallup of NewHospitalWing.com
One of the most interesting jobs I have ever had was cleaning the Laminar Flow Rooms at Albany Medical Center. This is a room that is designed for treating individuals with no or very low immunity defenses in their bodies. Most of the patients in this room are children. When I got married my wife and I moved to Albany, New York. She got a job as a legal secretary in the New York Attorney General's Office and I got a job washing walls at the Albany Medical Center as a "wall washer". We found an apartment halfway between the two jobs and within walking distance of each. My job entailed washing walls any place in the hospital. That included the Emergency rooms, ICU, Delivery rooms, Nurseries, Operating rooms, Isolation rooms, Hallways, The Morgue, and anywhere else a wall needed to be washed. There were 5 of us wall washers at Albany Medical when I was there. I had a habit of taking a ladder with me and washed the walls from the 9 foot ceilings to the floor. Many of the wall washers only washed as high as they could reach. It wasn't long till certain departments like the delivery rooms, nurseries, and the laminar flow room would call down to the department and ask for Franklyn instead of calling for a wall washer. The Laminar Flow room was featured in the movie,"The Boy in the Plastic Bubble" and starred John Travolta. The rooms are about nine foot square and about 7 foot tall and are inside another room. One entire wall is blowing purified air into the room. The only way the air can get out of the room is the doorway, no air can get in through the open doorway. This is one way direction air thus the name laminar flow. The process of cleaning is very meticulous. I first put on latex surgical gloves. Then I put on operating clothes being very careful not to touch my own clothes with my hands. I put on a head cover and mask. All of this comes in sanitized bundles. Next to last I put on a sanitized bootie and step into the room. I next put on the other bootie and am standing in the room. Lastly, I change into a new pair of surgical gloves just in case I accidentally touched my clothes or hair. The cleaning supplies are sanitized cloth diapers, distilled water, a sanitized stainless steel basin and disinfectant that I used elsewhere in the hospital at one ounce per gallon. In this room it is used 50 percent disinfectant to 50 percent distilled water. Cleaning involves soaking everything including the walls, ceiling and floors making sure to get every square inch. While I am doing this the wall is lowing purified into the room into and out the door. Once I am all done they fumigate the room and I repeat the whole process. There are kids that live in these rooms 24 hours, a day 7 days a week, year after year. A common cold would be fatal. They often get bone marrow transplants to try and get their bodies to produce white blood cells. If your kids complain about cleaning their rooms perhaps you should have them read this intel.
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Contributor's Note
All of my three children were born in Albany Medical Center. I now live in Centralia, WA as a wood flooring instructor
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Historical Usage Of Laminar Flow
| NewHospitalWing.com
| The Boy in the Plastic Bubble
| Albany Medical Center in Albany, New York
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
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Your description of this very necessary job was a revelation. I had no idea what was involved.
CONTRIBUTOR'S REPLY
It was very interesting work and got a lot of good training there.
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