Every hospice is blessed to have a wonderful group of volunteers. All hospice volunteers are vital to ensure that hospice fulfills its mission of helping those under their care. Hospice came into existence through the efforts of volunteers, but they aren’t just a luxury. Medicare requires at least 5% of all hospice patient care hours are provided by volunteers.
Hospice volunteers fulfill many roles. Sometimes they assist in the business office, some help with fundraising, while many are patient-contact volunteers or reach out to families through bereavement support calls. A volunteer chooses what area in which they want to serve. At my hospice, it may be all four.
Of the four areas of volunteering, the patient-contact volunteer is offered several unique privileges. The patient-contact volunteer is given the privilege of entering into someone’s life to help them complete goals and relive special delights in their personal history.
Will Rogers said, “We all can’t be heroes, someone has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.” The volunteer allows the person on service to be the star of the show by allowing them recount their successes, failures, funny stories, regrets, accomplishments, and goals.
Supporting someone on our hospice with their goals may involve helping them reunite with an estranged child. It may be connecting them with people to help them complete a train layout as a final gift to a grandson. Or it may be lending a hand to a Marine veteran whose goal is to put his fishing boat away for the winter so that everything is in order and he can die in peace. Completing personal goals are an important part of the final stage of life. Patient-contact volunteers are often involved in helping make these final requests possible.
Along those lines, the patient-contact volunteer is in the position to help people relive a favorite activity one final time. For example, one of our volunteers, Margie, was talking to a woman, Kay, who was staying for a few days at our hospice facility, Pickering House. She was lamenting about how all her life she loved going on picnics. Sadly, now that she was ill and bedridden Kay knew she would never go on another picnic.
On her way home Margie thought, “Why not bring a picnic to Kay?”
The next day the two of them shared a lovely picnic on the woman’s bed in the Pickering House. It was that simple. The woman said the only thing missing was the ants.
As with Margie, many of the activities in which patient-contact volunteers are involved consists of a one-last-time event. Over twenty years ago, as a patient-contact volunteer, I was visiting with a man while his wife went shopping. When I arrived, he was sitting in his favorite chair, a recliner. After his wife left, he decided he wanted to nap so he slowly got up out of the recliner. His bed was a mere five feet away. I helped him get out of his recliner and waited while he steadied his feet. I assisted him by holding his arm as he took the short walk to his bed.
As it turned out, I walked with him during the last steps he ever took. The volunteer coordinator called me the next day and said the man’s kidneys began to shut down. He died two days later. I got to thinking that over eighty years ago he took his first step with, most likely, a lot of fanfare from his parents. I had the honor to be with him when he took his last steps after all of those millions of steps throughout his life.
I frequently hear comments about how sad it must be to volunteer for a hospice. Whether at a hospice in-patient facility or in the home of someone on hospice, our volunteers help them celebrate and complete their life. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing more enjoyable and satisfying than that.
