Hospital volunteers bring ‘kindness’ to their work

How does volunteer work in the health field today compare to the old days? A lot of readers will probably remember Candy Stripers. How much more can they do than deliver flowers, bring the book cart, or play games with a bored child who is a patient?

Cari Wilson, director of volunteer services at Saint Joseph Health System, said volunteers are a lot more interactive in different departments.

There are volunteers who still welcome people. Volunteers also assist those challenged with mobility or in the surgical area by taking patients to pre-op rooms, let the nurse know they’re ready, and let the family know where to wait.

“Every 20 minutes, they bring

Planning

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Gifting program — there are Medicaid planning techniques that require you to transfer assets into a trust or outright to children. Under the current rules, any such transfers or gifts made within five years of the date that you apply for Medicaid can cause a period of ineligibility or a so-called “penalty period.” You can protect your transferred assets by making the transfers sooner than later in order to help meet the five-year period requirement.

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Sometimes, someone might have difficulty waking up or have post-surgical nausea.

“We don’t want the families just waiting and wondering,” Wilson said.

Wilson said the volunteers can start at age 16, while some are in their mid-80s.

“We do have another group that does their work from home, part of the telecare program. One volunteer is assigned per day on a regular schedule, so you’ll know you hear from this one on Monday and that one on Tuesday and so on,” Wilson said. “We have a lot who live alone, and we call to be sure they’re okay, didn’t fall in the night, things like that. The shifts are usually three or four hours, one or two times a week. I try to put them in different departments so they can interact and learn more,” Wilson explained.

The Department of Labor said a volunteer cannot replace a staff person.

“We cannot remove a staffer and replace with a volunteer. The mail used to be delivered by one particular volunteer. When she was gone, we realized how much she did; you can’t just drop X-rays in the X-ray department. There are so many offices in the back that a lot of people don’t know about. So, we realized it disrupted services in the hospital, and it needed to be assigned to a permanent staff person. The gift shop is run by volunteers,” Wilson said.

One thing COVID hurt was the grandparent program.

“We did use volunteers, especially in the NICU because touch and sensory contact is so vital to the tiniest ones, but it stopped during the pandemic,” she noted. The program has continued to be on pause, but it will continue once the doctors say they’re open to it.

“Really, the pandemic put all of us on pause for sure and made us aware of how much they did for us to lighten the load,” Wilson said. “When they returned, the older volunteers didn’t feel they should risk it and didn’t come back. I don’t blame them at all. In June, we saw the highest intake of new volunteers since before the pandemic. I like that the pandemic allowed us to review what we’d always done, like that old story about the roast in the pan. While volunteers were gone, I went into other departments, got a new awareness of shortages and new opportunities.”

When asked to describe what the volunteers bring to their work, Wilson said just one word: kindness.

“Some of us have deadlines, or meetings waiting in the wing, and even though it’s our passion to be here, some days are heavier than others,” she said. “The best way to lose a volunteer is to have them feel not needed. We never want them to feel they are not needed.”