For Madeline High, the half-hour stop with Dot and Julie is a welcome break from her quiet contemplation of the leafy view from her corner room of the palliative care wing. The 95-year-old’s face creases into a lovely smile as she sees Julie and Dot approach with their trusty stainless steel manicure trolley. “I feel like Cleopatra. It is bliss to be primped and pampered and have everything done for me,” Madeleine says with a chuckle. “And it’s so nice to look down at my hands with a pretty colour. Today I have chosen violet because it matches my gown, but next week I will have my new vibrant blue gown and my nails can match that one too.”
Dot has been volunteering at Sacred Heart for 20 years and insists she gets a lot more out of her visits there than the patients do. “We like to give them a break from the clinical care, to give them something that’s just for themselves,” Dot says. “As we get to know them we find that some of these women have never really had anything done for them their whole lives. We want to be able to make them feel better.” As Julie approaches one patient after another, she offers a warm smile, a gentle stroke of the cheek and the occasional sweet kiss on the brow. Murmuring close to those who may be feeling too unwell for a manicure, she asks about their families and their stories, picking up on details remembered from their last visit. “We get to know the patients and we become quite attached, so yes, it can be very sad as they become more unwell. We do find it hard,” says Julie of her 14 years as a volunteer. “But we also like to make it fun,” she says, smiling as she chooses a bright pink shade for another patient.
“When Dot and I go out to buy the polishes we tend to chose them for their names: I think this one, Aphrodite’s Pink Nightie, is perfect, don’t you?” It is this sense of fun and whimsy which makes the volunteer’s visits to Sacred Heart so special, according to Chris Harvey, who is the Volunteer Coordinator for Sacred and St Vincent’s Hospital. “It lifts their spirits and we want the patients to feel good about themselves. Even though they can’t control the other physical things that are happening to them, they can at least have some control over how they look,” Chris says. “It’s a gentle touch and I find the patients really respond to the volunteers because the clinical staff are in and out of their rooms a lot. They are talking about medication and about their disease and exercise, all those important things that are part of their job. But when a volunteer comes to see a patient they are there to listen, and they are not dwelling on the longevity of their illness.”
“ We like to give them a break from the clinical care, to give them something that’s just for themselves.” Dot Hunt
01 Volunteer Dot Hunt combs the hair of 95-year-old Madeline High as Julie Goold paints Madeline’s nails. 02 The two volunteers lift the spirits of patients.
many journeys. one vision. | st vincent’s hospital | sacred heart | st vincent’s private hospital | mater hospital | st joseph’s hospital | st joseph’s village
It may not seem much, a gentle hand massage and a couple of coats of nail-polish, but when volunteers Dot Hunt and Julie Goold visit patients each Friday at Sacred Heart, they offer more than a manicure.
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Annual Review 2010/11
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