Marie Toussant

For Marie Toussant, a housekeeper at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manhattan, honesty is the only policy. “I would never take anything that doesn’t belong to me.” she says.
Toussant, who has worked at St. Luke’s for 10 years, demonstrated her honesty dramatically on Oct. 4. While cleaning the room of a just-discharged patient, she found an envelope under a bed pillow filled with mostly $100 bills. She immediately notified the charge nurse. Toussant, the nurse and other staff counted the money. The total was $12,450.

“My shift ended at 4 p.m.,” she said, “but I was asked to work overtime and it was about 7:30 when I found the money.”

“Some people have asked me why I returned the money,” she said. “My conscience would not be clear if I hadn’t. I’m not a thief and whether it’s in housekeeping or anyplace, I believe you must always return whatever you find to its owner.”
Toussant’s story has been reported widely in the print and broadcast media as an example of honesty at a time when the greed of corporate heads, politicians and others have dominated the headlines.

Haitian-born Toussant and her husband of 30 years are proud of what they’ve accomplished, especially the direction they’ve given their two daughters – one a teacher and the other a graduate student in medicine. “We worked hard to put them through school,” she said.

“Although we always hear the worst things about housekeeping, we rarely hear the positive side of our housekeepers and their honesty,” said Helen Stack, St. Luke’s director of environmental services. “On November 17, I am giving a Thanksgiving party and Ms. Toussant will receive something very special from housekeeping and from St. Luke’s to thank her.”