BETTENDORF, Iowa — Hospitals are not usually places in which most people want to spend their time.
The UnityPoint Health - Trinity Bettendorf hospital, however, is the space where Paytin Schelb has found his place.
"It's pretty much hard work," Schelb said.
Paytin is one of the hospital's interns. He works at the hospital in the environmental service department with a busy daily routine.
"For discharges, I just collect the trash first, trash and linen first, and then I do around the world," Shelb explains. "Then I wipe down the bed, then I sanitize the bed, and wait for it to dry, that way the bed's linen won't get wet."
Fortunately for Schelb, he has some help every day.
"A lot of work goes into environmental service," Damien Bostick said, a 12-year hospital employee and one of Schelb's mentors.
Bostick said it is rewarding for him to see Schelb's growth and embrace the necessary routine everyday.
"I love how he says around the world," Bostick said. "Wiping everything in our path from basically our right hand on in a circular pattern so that we miss nothing."
It's a pattern so necessary for one group of hospital staff.
"Project SEARCH is a nine-month internship program for young adults with disabilities and barriers to employment," said Stacie Kintigh, the program's instructor at the hospital. "They get placed in departments where they automatically have to meet the standard."
According to 2021 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 19.1 percent of people with a disability were employed that year. That is up from 17.9 percent in 2020.
Kintigh draws on her more than three decades of experience teaching at North Scott High School in the special education department when leading this program.
"It makes them feel what it’s like to be at work," Kintigh said. "I can’t do that in a high school."
All of the program's participants are at least 18 years old and have completed their requirements for graduation from high school, Kintigh said. However, according to Project SEARCH's website, the transition program can also be adapted to people who are beyond the typical school age.
Through the Project SEARCH internship program, students learn and develop essential skills to be successful employees in the workforce. The program at UnityPoint Health - Trinity is just one of hundreds across the world, Kintigh said.
"They learn how to be on time, how to dress appropriately for the job, to work at the correct pace, how to gain speed and accuracy making efficiency," Kintigh said.
Including more people with disabilities is also one of the hospital's priorities.
"We're looking to increase the employment rate for any student or intern with a disability," said Erick Recinos, the diversity, equity and inclusion program manager for UnityPoint Health - Trinity.
One of Recinos' jobs is to help integrate the interns into the hospital space, with Kintigh's assistance.
"I think the most important thing that we can do as an organization is build bridges between people that have so much to give but have not historically received the opportunity to give," Recinos said.
Since the program started at the hospital in 2016, three dozen interns have graduated from the program. Three have chosen to stay with UnityPoint Health - Trinity as employees after finishing the internship.
It's an opportunity that program graduate Megan Mitchell could not pass up.
"It helped me be more confident and more independent," Mitchell said.
Mitchell graduated from Pleasant Valley High School in 2018. She then started the Project SEARCH program in 2019 and graduated in 2020. She has worked in the hospital's nutrition department and kitchen area ever since as a part-time employee. She hopes to become a full-time employee in a few years.
"Sometimes it's very, very peaceful back here," Mitchell says as she rolls silverware in the dish room.
The hospital, for these interns and employees, is a peaceful place. For them, being here is time well-spent.
"We want them to know for the rest of their lives they bring so much value to our communities," Recinos said.
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