Just like health care providers, Lilly Haeger walks into the rooms of suspected and confirmed COVID-19 patients at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center wearing gloves, a gown and full face protection – then a second pair of gloves.

But she isn’t there to provide hands-on patient care. Her job as a housekeeper in the hospital’s environmental services department is to disinfect rooms and keep disease from spreading to the next patient.

“I think what we do is different than what your housekeeper at a hotel would do because we’re more focused on keeping people safe from disease than making it look pretty,” Haeger said. “It’s been drilled into me to treat a room like your family member is staying there next.”

Haeger also functions as part of the hospital’s special pathogens unit, which was created in response to the Ebola outbreak in 2015. When the four COVID-19 patients from the Diamond Princess cruise ship were discharged, she was the one to do most of the disinfecting.

She also cleaned the empty unit regularly to be sure it was ready when the time came. And she watched numerous videos and underwent hours of training with health care workers in preparation for the worst-case scenario.

“For me, it wasn’t too nerve-wracking,” Haeger said about the four cruise ship passengers coming to Sacred Heart.

When the first possible COVID-19 cases from the Spokane community started arriving at the hospital last month, Haeger already had some practice.

“I have so much experience cleaning high-risk rooms,” Haeger said.

More than 13 years ago, a family member of Haeger’s who was working at Sacred Heart said she should apply for a job at the hospital. Before that, she had been working in hotels as a housekeeper.

Since then, even in light of COVID-19, her job hasn’t changed much, except for the extra disease prevention guidelines she has had to adhere to for the last several weeks, she said.

“This is what we do every day, and now we have to put into practice what we had only watched on videos for the real special stuff,” Haeger said.

Now she enters rooms of a potential COVID-19 patient with all the supplies she needs in order to limit exposure outside. She doesn’t leave until everything in the room has been disinfected.

“Just any kind of surface in the room,” Haeger said. “Anything that could possibly be coughed on and be touched later.”

That includes chair and table legs, along with handles on dressers and cabinets, Haeger said. At home, she said people can apply the same principles to phones, TV remotes and shower knobs.

“Pretty much anything you can touch,” she said.

Haeger volunteered to clean the rooms of suspected COVID-19 patients as the first potential cases arrived because she sensed the apprehension in other staff members.

“I knew (patients) still need the care that I provide,” she said. “It not only made them feel better, but it made the nurses feel better that I had cleaned. … Any fear of getting it wasn’t on my radar.”

She has also trained her colleagues to clean high-risk rooms and make them feel safer doing so.

“I just express to them how important it is for things to be disinfected,” Haeger said. “And not only that, but everybody doing their job properly, so if we’re all doing our job properly we’re going to be protected.”

Haeger cleans other high-traffic areas of the hospital once she’s finished with patient rooms. Wiping down surfaces such as handrails has garnered more than one “Thank you” from physicians, she said.

“It really shows how important our job is, and how important it is to not only make our patients feel safe but also our staff feel safe,” Haeger said. “It brings a little extra comfort for everybody … and that’s what we can take away and be proud of.”

Haeger also acknowledges the inherent risk in what she’s doing, with some contacts being riskier than others.

“I have a strong faith,” Haeger said. “So if I were to somehow get exposed, I am OK with whatever that path would take as well.”