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Hotel staff, unsung warriors: Coping with Covid-19 in a new role
Corona crisis has posed new challenges for the hospitality industry, especially the hotel staff, wherein their roles have changed to be able to nurse guests who are quarantined or asymptomatic Covid-19.
Who are the corona warriors? We know about the cops and doctors who are putting themselves beyond the call of duty, but wondered what has that hotel bellboy or hotel room service staff has to go through when all of a sudden asked to play the role of nurses for guests who need to be in quarantine or are asymptomatic carriers of Covid-19?
“The biggest challenge is to keep the team motivated during these tough times. Mentally, we all understood that this is the only hope to get some revenue to cover the basic costs of the hotel. The only tough part was to be prepared mentally. We live with our families and the fear of getting them affected someday because of us kills us,” says an employee of a Delhi hotel, who wishes to remain anonymous.
In a recent development to the previous order of the Delhi government attaching some city hotels to hospitals, now four premium Delhi hotels have been asked to follow suit and get attached with certain other hospitals, to provide rooms for more Covid-19 patients. Those in the hospitality industry, who haven’t handled any situation like this before, had already been working round the clock to try and serve the quarantined patients, as part of the Vande Bharat Mission that involves international and domestic evacuation of Indians across the globe and their consequent quarantine in some city hotels.
It’s a pandemic situation, true. But, how is the hotel staff coping in this new role that they never had to deliver earlier? “We have hotel management graduates who don’t know how to handle medical cases,” says Greesh Bindra, vice president operations, The Suryaa New Delhi. Bindra says he has taken initiative to draft SOPs, and train his staff on how to serve Covid-19 positive and quarantined patients while making the building ready to function as a facility for them. “I’ve been training the staff, in fact, I’ve gone one step ahead and made a Covid manager, who educates the guest and employees. In the lobby, we have distancing stickers and posters put up. We went ahead asking for help for the quarantine patients by requesting our younger staff. Everyone wears masks and gloves, and food goes in plastic (packaging), and we are doing everything to ensure that our people are safe. However, I have staff with young kids and young parents at home. Everyone is scared,” adds Bindra.
The anonymous staffer at the Delhi hotel adds, “We are currently catering to an average of 70-80 guests per day, which definitely requires a lot of planning and execution. Me along with my team have conducted hundreds of roleplays to master it. Everything has to be contactless, we don’t touch the papers they sign, only pictures are clicked for documentation, and all communication happens verbally or through WhatsApp.”
“I have a 6-month-old daughter and I miss spending time with her every day so I can assist the government authorities to keep the pandemic in check. It does feel good to be able to serve my country at this time, but I can’t forget that that’s at the cost of my family,” says an employee of a prominent five star hotel in Mumbai, who has been serving on ground while doing his best to take all necessary precautions. He adds, “We have been given protective gears and some basic training, and have been asked to work on a rotation basis. So we have had to leave our families for days and live in the hotel itself because we worked for quarantined patients. I never thought I’ll face such a situation in my career!”
It’s difficult to handle the pressure of working in such new roles, during a pandemic. Urmika Sahai, a counselling psychologist says, “If at any point the care giver, in this case the hotel staff, feels fearful for their own lives or undergoes mental stress trying to cope with the sudden changes in their duties, they must reach out to a counsellor. Whenever a person confronts a challenge, they react with either a fight or flight response. Of course proper sanitisation would help fight the mental fear, but might not drive it away. In order to ensure a healthy environment, proper counselling service must be offered to hotel staff as mandatorily as a supply of PPE suits and other protective gear.”
Advising the hotel staff on how to work amid the Covid-19 patients, Dr Sunit Mediratta, Apollo Hospitals, Delhi, says, “Engage in social distancing, and maintain a distance of six feet from all patients. Don PPE kits as a mandate, and reduce touch points (elevator buttons and door handles). Contactless check ins can also be made mandatory. And hotel staff shouldn’t attend work even if mildly symptomatic. It’s also important for hotels to not service air conditioning units after the arrival of patients or wash linen in common laundry.”
Author tweets @FizzyBuddha
