Maids at Psychiatric Hospital forced to wash by hand

…conditions unhygienic – staff

Maids attached to the National Psychiatric Hospital situated at Fort Canje, New Amsterdam, are being made to wash more than 600 sheets by hand.unfolded-sheet

On December 5, the lone washing machine at the facility, which houses hundreds of mentally-ill persons, stopped working. The six maids who work in the laundry department were promised that the machine would have been fixed during the past week.

Dirty laundry is taken to the department on Mondays. According to one of the maids attached to the department, on Mondays they receive about 500 pieces of dirty clothing, along with about 300 sheets.

This publication understands that the maids were advised last week to wait for the repairs. However, last week’s dirty laundry doubled on Monday. All of the wards took dirty clothing and sheets to the laundry department.

According to the maids, a large portion of the clothing which they are being asked to wash by hand is soiled with human waste. “With the washing machine sometimes, you does have to wash some of the clothes out in three waters before you put soap on them; so dirty they does be, and now they want us to wash it with our hands.”

The maids say they are voiceless and are seeking the intervention of a government agency that can assist them. “Slavery days done; even slavery wasn’t so hard,” one of the maids told this publication.