Jason Hodges, our Fundraising Manager, gives an account of his recent visit to an End of Life Volunteer scheme at Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital Foundation Trust (NNUH), one of our partner hospitals.
I’m perched on an office chair in a grey portacabin, as end of life volunteers Rena and Angela are given a list of patients who are dying.
They are preparing for their afternoon visits around the hospital to sit beside patients, listen if they want to talk, or simply hold their hand. Their role is to give emotional support – strictly non-clinical. Unlike the overstretched staff on the wards, Rena and Angela can give the gift of unhurried time.
Their coordinator Caroline tells them details the ward staff have sent. One patient is awake and alert, but can’t communicate. “She has been very jumpy with loud noises” Caroline cautions.
Some insights are simple. “He’s a big man – he used to work out on the rigs.”
Others offer a fascinating glimpse into their life. “She takes great pride in her appearance, and her favourite colour is pink. She loved to stay up until the early hours of the morning watching the wrestling on tv.”
Some patients seem to be deeply asleep, but they can still benefit from a visit. Hearing is often the last sense to fail, Caroline tells us. One volunteer takes a book to read to patients. She chooses a classic that they might remember – Alice in Wonderland, or The Wind in the Willows.
Almost a third of those receiving a visit have been diagnosed with dementia. A patient who enjoyed the company of a volunteer yesterday will forget it ever happened, and refuse a visit the next day.
Volunteers need to be flexible, and sensitive in their approach. They check in with the nursing staff, then peek into the patient’s room to see if they are awake before deciding whether a visit is appropriate. For many patients, the volunteers are their only visitors before they die.
The end of life visiting service was set up in partnership with the Anne Robson Trust, helping the hospital to recruit and train a service coordinator, and supporting them to build and equip their volunteer team. It is one of eleven partnerships the Anne Robson Trust has forged with hospitals across the country, to improve provision for people at the end of their life.
The charity provides the hospitals with a simple visiting card for patient’s bedsides, with space for their family and friends to write anything they would like the volunteers to know. This allows volunteers to talk to patients about their grandchildren, play a favourite piece of music for them, or tell them the cricket result if they are a big fan.
That this incredible service has been consigned to a portacabin is not because it is undervalued by the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. Quite the opposite – the hospital’s chief nurse, Professor Nancy Fontaine, told us earlier that morning how vital she considers the visits to be, and the positive impact it makes for patients, their families, and the ward staff.
Rather, space in the hospital is at a premium, forcing many much-needed services into portacabins or converted shipping containers, far from the huge metal sculptures and modern glass-front of the main building.
Caroline and the volunteers hope to have a dedicated hub soon. A quiet space for families to prepare for the visit to their dying relative, and to decompress afterwards, before the journey home. Plans have been drawn up, but it is a long waiting game.
Patients at the end of their life are spread across several different wards. Volunteers often face a long walk in between each visit, which is no bad thing. It gives them time to decompress, reset, and prepare themselves. Volunteers find the role rewarding, and consider it a privilege to share these moments with people who don’t have long on this earth. But visits can be heavy-going, and the work sometimes takes its toll. On one of Rena’s first ever patient visits, a patient died while she was sat by their side. It’s not common, but it does happen, she tells us.
Everyone has a different reason for becoming an end of life volunteer. Some have experienced personal tragedy themselves. Others have a clinical background, and have worked several decades at the hospital or in the community. Some simply want to give something back, and support people in need. Whatever their motivation, the volunteers are united in their purpose – to bring comfort with their presence by talking, listening, or offering their hand to hold.
In the portacabin, Rena and Angela are keen to begin their visits. They thank us for listening, then exit the gloom into the sunlight to bring comfort to the dying.
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