“I’m Proud of the Staff”
Brian Maltase took care of his mother for four and a half years until she passed away. He says his mother’s memory is what gives him the drive to make sure the residents at Providence, where he has served as Director of Environmental Services since 2015, have what they need.
“I think, what would my mom want, and what would I want her to have?”
The Little Things
What Brian thinks the residents need most is to know they are cared for. “One of my goals has always been to try and remember everyone’s first names,” he says. “It’s a little thing, but it helps them feel important, instead of just a customer or a job to complete. It gives them some dignity and reminds them that I’m a friend.”
Brian thinks especially of the residents who don’t have many visitors, even in the best of times. While he and his team make improvements to the physical structure of Providence, they also work to develop relationships with the people inside.
He and his team saw the residents’ need for contact more than ever during the pandemic. While the residents couldn’t visit with family and friends, his team became one of the only points of contact they saw face-to-face.
“Everyone felt alone,” he says. “We probably got more calls than usual, and about little things. I think many of our visits weren’t so much about what needed to be fixed. It was more about residents wanting to feel connected to others.”
The maintenance staff continued their routine work, but also became the moving team, the sanitizers, the construction workers, and so much more as they fought against the pandemic. “We were all concerned about our health, but we just took the precautions and put that fear in the back of our heads, and we just did the job,” he says. “Our staff did a great job helping to keep the COVID-19 numbers down and following mitigation procedures. We had to think about the people here who were at much higher risk.”
A Tremendous Difference
Now that things have opened up again, Brian says that he sees a “tremendous difference” in the residents. “Just the ladies getting to have their hair done,” he says. “They’d been asking for so long. And now they have that piece of normal back.”
When Brian isn’t at work, the residents miss him. “I’ll come back and hear from different staff that so-and-so was asking about me,” he says. “It amazes me that, no matter what each resident is going through, they still take time to care about me. Residents pray for me, and I pray for them.”
And Brian says he’s just one part of an amazing team who all add a personal touch to their care for the residents. “People here give 110 percent even when they’re tired,” Brian says. “I’m proud of the staff that works at Providence across all communities and departments.”
