‘I’m A People Person’

Norma Ochoa, a service aide at South Brooklyn Health, is a self-described “people person.” She jokes that she’s like a “babysitter” for her coworkers, who trust that she’ll get them whatever they need to keep the hospital running.

“I love what I do....everybody knows me,” she said. “Some people like to fight for days and months, but I’m not that type of person.”

Ochoa, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, started the job as an hourly worker in 1995. “I was a single mom with three kids,” she said. The hospital was still known as Coney Island Hospital then. Now, as a leader on the job and as longtime chair of the her union’s chapter at the hospital, it “feels like I make a difference.”

Ochoa began her journey at the hospital as a housekeeping service aide, which she did for three years. “Then, I went to elevator services. I was an elevator operator for 18 years,” she said. “I was going up and down, I was in the freight elevator taking patients around the hospital.”

Currently, Ochoa works in central supply. Hospital staff come down to pick up cleaning and medical supplies that she organizes with two of her coworkers, and use them to “serve the whole hospital.”

You can’t make the hospital run without “everybody else,” Ochoa noted. Indeed, service aides essentially make up the backbone of South Brooklyn Health; she says that she also has colleagues embedded in the pharmaceutical and dietary departments, just to name two.

“I am so thankful that I’ve a service aide, because even though I don’t make a lot of money, I’ve had a job for a long time,” Ochoa said. “I’m blessed that I'll have my pension, and my retirement plan...I’m gonna be 56 years-old in December.”

When Ochoa has some time off work, she prioritizes spending time with her children and eight grandchildren. Every Saturday, she spends time with her daughter in Bensonhurst, who has four kids. She also has a daughter in Texas, and a son in Philadelphia.

Ochoa also has two dogs at home in Dyker Heights, and is a proud “animal lover.” At larger social gatherings, she loves to dance.