Grampians Health welcomes back volunteers

Along with most other volunteer programs in the country, if not the world, coming to a halt in March 2020, so did our palliative care volunteer program. But unlike some of my other volunteer programs our palliative care program at Grampians Health is back up and running. This is mostly attributed to the hard work of our volunteers and the levels that they were willing to go to see that the clients didn’t miss out on valuable contact and assistance.

Volunteers (L-R) Barb Eltze, Ann Dyer and Shirley Glover

First steps when lockdown was lifted

When lockdown was lifted and people could go out again the volunteers would catch up with clients at the café for a coffee, go for a drive or meet at the park.  All precautions were taken and masks were worn at all times. Our volunteers are special and they know the risk of illness for their clients so they took every precaution they could. Home visits were a little slower to return as we needed to wait for visitor restrictions to ease but we improvised where we could.

Valuable moments

I have had volunteers and clients tell me how valuable these moments were. We (the world) were in a new situation and times were uncertain. It helped clients to have someone check in with them, if not in person then by phone, when nothing else was allowed but it was something.