Manny has been at Oak Valley Health for over three years, beginning his career at Markham Stouffville Hospital as a part-time environmental services attendant (ESA) and casual worker in the linen department.
Manny is one of the first people at Oak Valley Health to lead the charge in the new, optimized role of support services attendant (SSA), one that evolved from the environmental services attendant (ESA) role.
As Oak Valley Health looked for opportunities to increase efficiencies for patient care on the units, they re-evaluated how the clinical and support services staff worked alongside each other to ensure workflow was seamless and effective. The SSA role was created and piloted on one unit before being rolled out more widely within the hospital.
For Manny, the SSA role is a new experience, where he gets to learn more in his job, and have the ability to help the units with additional responsibilities and broaden his skills set. In his new role, he is more involved in the patient discharge care process. He is also able to support some patient needs, such as getting them water or a blanket.
It hasn’t been a big transition from ESA to SSA for Manny because of his drive to take initiative and help out where he can. He has always had the mentality of doing what needs to be done and to help out his colleagues. If he sees anything around the room that he can do, he does it without having to involve the personal support worker (PSW) or nurse. With the SSA role now being more integrated in the patient’s care, he feels empowered to support clinical staff with some additional work that he wasn’t able to before.
What Manny loves about his new role is being permanent full-time, being more integrated into the team, and the familiar, family feel that the new team dynamic provides. He also loves the feeling of accomplishment in getting the job done.
Manny loves working at Oak Valley Health because of his role in helping patients, helping the hospital to serve patients.
When not he’s not at work, Manny enjoys spending time with family, and playing outdoor sports. He especially enjoys playing pickleball with his colleagues at Cornell Community Centre.
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