FOR YOUR HEALTH Volunteers
GIVE BACK TO HOSPICE PATIENTS Larry and Mary Karls, longtime Billings residents, now retired, are busier than ever, but they make time to volunteer for RiverStone Health Hospice and Hospice Home. In a training session with half a dozen other Roxanne Allen, R.N. volunteers, they learned Director of RiverStone Health Hospice Services about their role as volunteers and their responsibilities to protect patient privacy. The nurse providing the training recognized one of the new volunteers as the wife of a recent hospice patient. “You could feel the tenderness,” as the nurse greeted that familiar person, Larry said. The Karls volunteered at the 2021 RiverStone Health Foundation Hospice Golf Tournament at Laurel Golf Club, serving as hole-in-one watchers. Pandemic precautions have limited opportunities for hospice volunteers recently, but Mary worked at RiverStone Health Hospice Home this summer. Many volunteers were first family members of Hospice or Hospice Home patients. The compassion and care their loved ones received often sparks acts of kindness as family members choose to give back. Mary first heard about RiverStone Hospice when Larry’s brother needed end-of-life care. He lived his final days in Horizon Hospice residential facility, the first 24/7 facility started by Riverstone Health Hospice. Inpatient care now is provided in the Hospice Home. 6
DECEMBER 2021 / JANUARY 2022
Later, RiverStone Health Hospice staff assisted Larry’s mother in her Billings apartment. While Larry and his seven siblings helped care for their mother, the hospice nurse brought the medications needed to keep her comfortable. Professional hospice staff trained family members in how to move their mother safely. “All the hospice employees were so gentle trying to make things work,” Mary said. “When we decided to volunteer, we thought, ‘we can help other people the same way we were helped.’ ” Yellowstone County’s first and oldest hospice, RiverStone Health Hospice got its start with volunteers who saw a need to provide end-of-life care to cancer patients. I began working for that first hospice in 1988 and I’ve been working with hospice patients ever since. Most are served in their own homes, nursing home or a hospice house. When the patient cannot be comfortable and well cared for at home, RiverStone
Larry and Mary Karls
