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Mayor installs washing machine at Pune’s Naidu hospital after laundry men use bare hands to wash clothes
Brothers Sanjay and Sham Pardeshi landed the laundry jobs at Naidu hospital after their mother who was working with PMC passed away in 2003
For two Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) laundry workers, washing clothes belonging to Covid-19 positive patients with their bare hands had become a part of the routine at the Naidu hospital.
When the city’s mayor Murlidhar Mohol found out about the absence of a washing machine, he had it installed immediately.
“We are taking so much care about ourselves but these laundry men are washing positive patients’ clothes manually. I immediately asked the store department head Srinivas Kandul to purchase an industrial washing machine for Naidu hospital. Despite lockdown, the administration managed to procure it from the mayor’s fund,” Mohol said.
Brothers Sanjay and Sham Pardeshi landed the laundry jobs at Naidu hospital after their mother who was working with PMC passed away in 2003.
“Now, I have an industrial washing machine where 50 bed sheets or blankets can be washed at a time. But I still need to physically go to each ward and collect the soiled clothes,” Sanjay Pardeshi said.
The brothers are expected to clean hospital bed sheets, pillow covers and other clothes. “Since Naidu Hospital began serving people, our family is doing laundry work at the hospital. Though the hospital is run by a civic body, the business of washing clothes is with our family only. My father and mother both were serving here,” Sanjay Pardeshi said.
The civic body has also added a drying machine to their inventory recently but it hasn’t been installed yet.
“Every day I am going to Covid-19 wards and collecting clothes. Earlier, there was a slight fear but now I have become used to it and take necessary care to clean the clothes,” Sanjay said. According to him, as a government employee he doesn’t have an option to deny doing work during a pandemic.
“I worked here during swine flu, Sars and now Covid-19, I use to even clean tuberculosis patients’ clothes regularly so there is no fear,” he added.
The Pardeshi brothers wash clothes, dry it and send them to the Covid-19 wards the following day, these include clothes of resident doctors at the hospital as well. “We are 17 members in our family who are living together at the Naidu hospital quarters. We are a joint family. We were four brothers but two passed away but their family is also with us,” Sanjay Pardeshi said.
When asked whether he fears for his life, Pardeshi said his family has been serving at the Naidu hospital for the last 100 years since the hospital’s foundation. “The hospital is meant to look after the sick and we are used to it. After any new disease, first patient arrives at this hospital and we are mentally prepared to carry out this work by taking necessary precautions,” he said.
