The streak continues: Hospital worker nearing 37th year with no sick days
Mike Turner only missed 15 minutes of work during his career
It's not something Mike Turner thinks about, but everywhere he goes, people question him.
"They say, 'Do you still have perfect attendance?' And I go, 'Yup.'"
This summer, Turner is set to mark 37 years on the job without a sick day — a remarkable achievement for anyone, let alone a hospital employee working during a pandemic.
He said he's never had so much as a sniffle during work.
"I'm very lucky, that's all I can say," he said.
Turner works as a senior store clerk at the Colchester East Hants Health Centre in Truro, N.S. His team sorts all the supplies for the hospital.
He started on Aug. 8, 1983, and said the past two months have been the busiest of his career.
"The PPE – the personal protective equipment – the supplies were going in and coming out as fast as we were getting them in," he said. "Some of the departments normally wouldn't need these supplies, so with the pandemic, they needed them. That upped our quantities a lot."
In order to make sure everyone stayed healthy, the team was split into two, and Turner found himself on a shift schedule, alternating between a week of early mornings or late nights.
"That lasted for six weeks, so that was different," he said.
The once-social store is now closed to everyone but those who run it. The store clerks take orders and deliver them through the hospital.
"We got donations from the public too after this all started," said Turner. "They donated stuff like gloves and masks, if they had them."
Turner himself had to start using the supplies, wearing a mask around the hospital as he performed his duties.
"After each shift, we wiped everything down, all the computers and everything before we started," he said. "So we took all the precautions that we were told to do."
Despite all the change, Turner's title of the Ironman still stands. Other than the day he passed a kidney stone — where he missed 15 minutes of work — he says there hasn't been a moment that made him consider staying home.
Instead of counting up the years without a sick day, Turner is now counting down. He plans to retire in the new year.
"So I won't make 38," he laughed.
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