December 4, 2006 - Maintenance Gets Ready for Winter

This can be an overwhelming time of year for homeowners. Boilers, furnaces and a million other details beg for attention before winter sets in.

Multiply that job list 100-fold and you have an idea of the responsibilities of the St. Francis Memorial Hospital maintenance team of Tony Page, Wayne Byers and Gerard Olsheski.

Together, they manage:

Approximately 70,000 square feet of buildings, including the hospital, the St. Francis Health Centre and the ambulance building

two low-pressure hydronic boilers used for laundry, cooking, hot water and heating the building

Two generators in case of power failure

Dozens of heating and cooling control valves and literally miles of piping and electrical wiring.

“We can be sure we won’t be doing the same thing every day,” comments Page. His fellow maintenance workers include 1 full time staff: Wayne Byers and one part time staff, Gerard Olsheski.

“They’re like our guardians,” says Darlene Sernoskie, Director of Operations at the hospital.

“They go above and beyond,” Sernoskie says, remember many occasions when they’ve boosted a dead car battery at the end of a shift or filled a low tire with air even before the owner knew it was flat.

“They’re not only just nice people, they’re very capable people,” says Sernoskie. “Their work has always been excellent.”

In addition to day-to-day maintenance on the building, the department also handles the hospital’s considerable landscaping duties, cutting grass in the summer and making sure the sidewalks are clear of snow in the winter.

The ongoing renovations necessary to keep the hospital up-to-date also help keep the department busy.

“The standard joke is that we should have walls on wheels,” Page chuckles.

Renovations, both by the department and other construction firms, have been an ongoing part of life at SFMH. Through it all, the maintenance department is responsible for keeping the hospital warm, secure and in full operation. The range of expertise within the department allows them to tackle almost any project from the smallest repairs to working with the architects on expansion plans.

“We do a little bit of everything,” comments Wayne Byers, who has been a member of the department for the past 18 years.

“It’s interesting,” he adds, “We learn new things every week.”