Making every moment count: Volunteer training to be held
Hospice volunteer Tom Fry filled his bucket hat with water from a hose and then quickly returned the hat to his head to let the water pour down his face in an effort to make a patient laugh. It worked.
LifeCare Hospice will conduct a no-cost, no-obligation volunteer training course in Millersburg July 16-20 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Upon the completion of the 30-hour course, attendees will be commissioned as official hospice volunteers.
The topics and training in this course will include hospice history, active listening and communication techniques, spiritual care training, and pain and symptom control, to name a few. Participants also will learn how to operate hospital beds, wheelchairs and oxygen tanks.
At the completion of the course, volunteer coordinator Rebecca McCurdy will meet with participants individually to discuss volunteer needs and subsequently match those needs with the comfort level of the newly commissioned volunteer.
According to McCurdy, the variety of volunteer opportunities is vast. “Hospice volunteers provide a great service and comfort, not only for a hospice patient, but for their families as well,” she said. “Nothing matters more than contributing to the goal of providing compassionate comfort and ensuring quality care and dignity in the final days of a person’s life.”
Volunteers are trained to provide both direct and practical support and may choose from a variety of ways to be involved, from providing support for the patient and family through music, conversation or the recording of a patient’s past memories to walking a beloved dog. The needs are endless.
“I ask the volunteers what kind of things they are willing to do and still find joy in the work,” McCurdy said. “It’s really important the volunteers like what they are doing. If it’s just reading a book to a patient who was once an avid reader or just preparing a favorite meal, the peace of mind volunteers provide cannot be underestimated.”
According to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, the term “hospice” can be traced back to medieval times, referring to a place of shelter and rest for weary or ill travelers.
In 1948, English Anglican nurse and physician Dame Cicely Saunders began her career working for terminally ill patients and thus founded the first modern hospice, St. Christopher’s Hospice, in a residential suburb of London.
Saunders introduced the idea of hospice to the United States in a 1963 visit and lecture to Yale University. Today hospice is a world-wide organization that believes no one with a life-limiting condition should live and die with unnecessary pain and that patients should have a choice and the ability to participate in the decisions that affect their destiny.
LifeCare Hospice originated in Wooster in 1982 and is presently a nonprofit organization with five clinical teams serving Wayne and Holmes counties. There are currently 100 paid staff including 52 nurses, 20 personal care specialists, two medical directors, a dietitian and office personal.
There also are 200 volunteers, chaplains and social workers who oversee the care for 175 patients. “In 1982 we had only eight patients,” McCurdy said. “It’s been a long road. Back then we kept the lights on with bake sales and chicken barbecue fundraisers.”
Husband and wife, Tom and Jackie Fry, have been hospice volunteers for more than a decade. Jackie Fry was recently awarded the 2017 Volunteer of the Year for giving more than 500 hours of her time.
“It changes you. You learn things about yourself in the process of life and death,” she said. “Nobody is experienced in knowing how to care for someone who is dying unless you’ve had the training and personal experience. The Hospice Volunteer course provides that foundation of strength and knowledge, covering meaningful and interesting topics in a thorough and thoughtful way. I highly recommend the course to anyone.”
The Frys enjoy planting flowers at the impatient facility in Wooster, a park-like, 16-acre retreat accommodating 12 patients with all rooms facing a private patio looking out to a serene pond and tree-lined walking trails.
Tom Fry is the comic relief of this husband and wife volunteer team. He also utilizes his barber skills, trimming beards and providing haircuts to patients “because it makes them feel good and brings forth a smile.”
Last summer Tom Fry was pulling weeds adjacent to a patient who had been watching him outside. “I was wearing my bucket hat and approached this patient and told him that these hats have another purpose other than sitting on your head,” he said.
Fry then proceeded to remove his hat, fill it with water from a hose and then quickly returned the hat to his head as the water poured down his face.
“The patient laughed out loud, a good belly laugh, and that is everything, putting a smile on the face of a person who is dying,” Tom Fry said.
When a cure is no longer a possibility, personalized care including honoring the dignity of a terminally ill person and their caregivers is the goal. Volunteers are an important facet of the hospice team, providing care that enhances a person’s quality of life for both patient and family members.
Killbuck resident Laura McCartney knows firsthand how important hospice volunteers are. Her mother Laura ‘Louise’ Reed was diagnosed with cancer in 2002 and died in 2007. This was McCartney’s first experience with hospice, and she admittedly had no idea what to expect.
“I was afraid when my dad told me hospice was coming to our home. I thought to myself, ‘This is it,’ but I soon discovered their goal was to make every day count for my mother,” she said. “Volunteers would come in and sit with my mom, allowing my father and me to leave our house to do errands or to just get a physical and mental break. We’d return home to find the dishes washed, the laundry folded and Mom peacefully resting with a volunteer by her side. They always went above and beyond. I just cannot speak highly enough about the importance of these volunteers and the relief they provided my family.”
LifeCare Hospice returned to McCartney’s home a year and a half later to care for her terminally ill father, Edward Reed. “I was only 22 years old by the time I lost both of my parents. I was just trying to figure out how life was supposed to work, not thinking how life is supposed to end. I would have never gotten through this without the hospice volunteers and nurses. They are angels on earth,” she said.
For hospice volunteer training registration, call McCurdy at 330-674-8448 or 800-884-6547.
LifeCare Hospice's Millersburg location is at 1263 Glen Drive, Suite B.