Contributed by: Kelly Orozco, OSF Hospice Volunteer Coordinator
Hospice can be a scary word for patients and their families. Oftentimes volunteers come to training with some fears of their own. After patients & families receive our services, support, and education, they can start to see that the once “scary” word has morphed into an understanding that hospice is about…living.
It’s about living the last stage of life with comfort. It’s about looking for ways we can stand beside a patient to help them live a dream of theirs. It may also be as simple as helping family/caregivers live with a little less fear and worry.
What Do Hospice Volunteers Do?
The focus of volunteer training is, “How can I help the patient and family to live more comfortably?” Volunteers are not medical people which frees them up to focus on helping with those small details of life that may have previously been pushed aside during the chaos of transition.
That means volunteers may: deliver meals, provide caregivers with respite, run errands, provide music therapy through singing or playing instruments, help with housekeeping, and read to patients. For those who want to volunteer without patient contact, there are also office volunteers that assist the hospice team with making logistics run smoothly for those of us directly working with patients and their families.
This is only a small list of what volunteers do, and it does not adequately express the gift of love that the volunteers and families give back and forth to each other.
Volunteer Stories
To better understand the impact of hospice volunteers, I would like to share a few stories from our volunteer reports.
One volunteer writes,
“She smiles a lot and seems glad to see me. Music was playing, and she looked to be enjoying it. I told her, I bet you were a singer, and she started humming a tune. When I told her it sounded good, she hummed another one. It was great she understands me! She laughed and seemed happy.“
Soon after this visit, the patient told the volunteer that she used to be a singer at a piano bar in New York. What makes this amazing is that the other hospice staff didn’t even know she could speak. He was the only one she spoke to. It was through sitting by her side and paying attention to the little details that he found music was life giving to her.
Another volunteer writes,
“We got along like a million bucks! I was so flattered she told me, ‘You’re the best medicine for what ails me.’ She was very responsive and gave me three to five word answers.”
This volunteer was matched to make visits, because the family desperately needed some time away to recharge. The patient didn’t speak much, but as you can see from the volunteer note, she just needed the right person to bring cheer to her life.
There are countless stories like these and stories of patients completing one last thing on their bucket list while on Hospice. So the next time you think of the word “hospice,” I hope it doesn’t conjure up scary thoughts.
Instead I hope you see it as a team of people, including volunteers, that help with life.
Interested in Volunteering for OSF Hospice?
If you are interested in volunteering for OSF Hospice or just wanting to learn more about hospice volunteer programs, please feel free to contact Kelly Orozco at (309) 683-7703.
Last Updated: March 16, 2018
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