Lorraine – Reception Volunteer

About 11 years ago I started Volunteering once a week, Tuesday mornings, for Hospice at Home Carlisle and North Lakeland, and it is one of the best things I ever did. At that time our office was in Penrith. A small house with only four or five permanent staff, but so busy and friendly that I wished I went there more often. The clinical side of the organisation was based at Eden Valley Hospice in Carlisle, so sadly I never saw the nurses and therapists working for the charity.

In 2017 the office staff and clinical side all moved to our present offices in Dalston, and what a difference that made. As well as a growing number of office staff, the Clinical Team are now based there too and I see them all coming and going, as I work on reception and everyone passes me on their way in and out of the building.

I really do love my Tuesday mornings! It is a friendly, interesting place to be. I love chatting and perhaps joking with the staff, and seeing the patients who come in for help. I can tell from their demeanour how their treatment upstairs has helped them.

It seems that at the moment it is becoming more and more difficult to get volunteers like myself…why is that? My generation were probably at home more when our families were little and so it was easier to fit in volunteering around children. I used to take my two with me when I did Meals on Wheels. They loved it, the elderly folk I was taking meals to loved chatting to the children and of course offering them sweets and fruit! Nowadays young parents are more likely to have full time jobs with the children in nursery or being looked after by Grandparents who in the 1970’s were perhaps the Volunteers. Modern life has certainly not helped charities.

Volunteers are needed in so many ways, not just in the Office. A phone call to Dalston will let you know where, when and how they are needed.

Hospice at Home is a wonderful organisation. It is said that approx. 75% of people, if they could, would chose to remain at home with their loved ones, including pets, and in familiar surroundings and this is what our wonderful nursing staff are helping happen. I see letters and cards and of course donations of money, from really grateful families, telling us how the care from Hospice at Home has made a very difficult time rather easier and less stressful for them.

I had a spell in hospital earlier this year and I could see how overworked the nursing staff were, and learnt how difficult it was to get patients whom were now recovered, out of the wards and home safely. We are an ageing population and that problem is not going to go away. Hospice at home will be needed more and more to help relieve the overcrowding in hospitals.

If any of you reading this are perhaps thinking they have the odd hour or so spare, do get in touch with us. You would be welcomed with open arms and I am sure you would be as happy as I am that you made the move.

 

See you in Reception…

Lorraine Bullogh

Hospice at Home Volunteer of 11 years