By By Dan Hounsell

The maintenance and engineering staff in healthcare facilities usually work behind the scenes and out of sight. In a crisis, however, facilities rely on these workers to help facilities remain operational and safe for patients. Consider the performance of the staff at Southwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center during the cold-weather crisis that has struck the South.

The medical center’s maintenance staff carried buckets of water drawn from a well throughout the hospital to clean and sanitize during the regional water crisis, according to U.S. News & World Report. 

“Our maintenance staff and dietary staff had to make do, and they did a great job”  hospital CEO Charla Rowley said. “They have really worked double time to make sure we were sustaining the services we can and make it the same quality of care we hold ourselves to. Someone was constantly up and down carrying buckets of water or somewhere salting the walk ways for people coming in.”

Even though the hospital had its own water well, it only operates in the main building and not the stand-alone cancer or cardiology centers. The well could only “be used to flush toilets and that is about it,” Rowley said.

“I really appreciate the city and the guys out there in a hole in freezing weather dealing with a water issue,” she says. “It was bad enough getting people in the hospital, let alone outside.”

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