diff --git a/mimic-iv/buildmimic/postgres/load_7z.sql b/mimic-iv/buildmimic/postgres/load_7z.sql
index 5f238bc4..8ccc4604 100644
--- a/mimic-iv/buildmimic/postgres/load_7z.sql
+++ b/mimic-iv/buildmimic/postgres/load_7z.sql
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 -- To run from a terminal:
 --  psql "dbname=<DBNAME> user=<USER>" -v mimic_data_dir=<PATH TO DATA DIR> -f load_gz.sql
-\cd :mimic_data_dir
+\cd :'mimic_data_dir'
 
 -- making sure that all tables are emtpy and correct encoding is defined -utf8- 
 SET CLIENT_ENCODING TO 'utf8';
diff --git a/mimic-iv/buildmimic/postgres/load_gz.sql b/mimic-iv/buildmimic/postgres/load_gz.sql
index f77ac82f..e9a895a4 100644
--- a/mimic-iv/buildmimic/postgres/load_gz.sql
+++ b/mimic-iv/buildmimic/postgres/load_gz.sql
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@
 
 -- To run from a terminal:
 --  psql "dbname=<DBNAME> user=<USER>" -v mimic_data_dir=<PATH TO DATA DIR> -f load_gz.sql
-\cd :mimic_data_dir
+\cd :'mimic_data_dir'
 
 -- making sure that all tables are emtpy and correct encoding is defined -utf8- 
 SET CLIENT_ENCODING TO 'utf8';