Laundry and Linens

Five Carpenter Library employees were seeing blue, green, yellow, white and hearing lots of numbers on 2SB (sub-basement) of Reynolds Tower during their tour of the Laundry and Linen Distribution departments on Wednesday, September 30, 2009.

Associate Director Dennis Robinson shared his vast knowledge and time during the hour-long tour. He rattled off lots of numbers, like:

• 1,200 flat white bed sheets are ironed in one hour
• 9,000 barrier gowns are used per day
• 400 carts of linens and laundry is picked up/delivered per day
• 6,000 washcloths are used per day
• 1,800 - 1,900 thermal blankets are used per day
• 4,000 underpads are used per day
• 165 pounds of towels can be held in one sling hanging from the ceiling
• 205 pounds of flat sheets can be held in one sling
• 35-40,000 pounds of soiled linen are handled per day
  

There are 60 people who work in the Laundry section and 20 people who distribute linens to more than 185 departments/patient areas on the WFUBMC campus. The Department also handles the laundry for Stokes-Reynolds Memorial Hospital, Stokes Family Health and J.R. Jones Medical Center. Amazingly, all this work is done with a schedule of seven days a week for first shift and five days a week for second shift.

Laundry and Linen started in a space of 9,000 square feet in 1923 when the hospital opened. Employees handled five million pounds per year. Now, still in its 9,000 square feet, employees have handled up to 14 million pounds of laundry per year.

The department is responsible for 13 scrub dispensers and 11 scrub receivers. The 4,000 users of the scrub machines have encoded cards for acquiring a set of scrubs and for returning a set of scrubs. Before the machines were installed in 1996, laundry employees were taking 1,900 sets of scrubs per day just to the operating rooms.

Between the many numbers, colors and different odors, Library employees left 2SB feeling appreciative for the work of their coworkers here at WFUBMC.