Quietly working, these volunteers deal with issues of life and death.
Donating their time to the Joliet Area Community Hospice, the volunteers are doing their best to make sure the patients entrusted to them have a quality life for as long as they can, followed by a dignified death.
Their job can be as simple as washing a load of clothes or shopping for groceries or as complicated as counseling survivors. Each case is a separate one and the job is not easy. Volunteers are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In its 10th year, Joliet Area Community Hospice has an annual budget of approximately $700,000, which goes toward salaries, medical equipment used in patients’ homes and medications. It relies on funds from Medicare, Medicaid, donations, memorials, private insurance companies and United Way.
“We never send a patient a bill,” said Duane Krieger, hospice director.
About 85 percent of the patients it serves have cancer and the rest suffer from AIDS, heart disease or lung disease. In 1992, the hospice served 175 patients and their families, a 47 percent increase from the 119 served in 1991.
According to Krieger, the concept of hospice started in England several decades ago. “It’s a concept of care, not a place of care,” he said. “Our patients have a lot to say about what goes on.”
Hospice care involves a team effort, one that relies heavily on volunteers. It takes patients from both Silver Cross Hospital and St. Joseph Medical Center in Joliet and other hospitals in Will County. About 85 percent of patients who use the hospice services choose to die at home, Krieger said.
When the hospice was formed, Silver Cross and St. Joseph each put up $5,000 for the program. The hospice’s offices at 335 W. Jefferson St. was donated by Jack Rogers, a retired Joliet businessman.
Clara Bridge, who is in charge of the volunteers, serves as a matchmaker between volunteer and patient and family, and she also can call on clergy for those who desire that counseling. “It’s like a cafeteria line-you take what you need,” Krieger said.
Bridge has 137 volunteers, not all of whom work with patients. Some donate time in the office, others serve on the hospice guild, its fundraising arm, and on the board. Volunteers go through an intensive training program, Bridge said, held in the fall and spring for four weeks from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays, and each gets an 84-page volunteer manual for reference. Bridge will begin recruiting volunteers at the end of July.
“Much of (the sessions) are working on the strengthening of the self because we need to take care of ourselves for this kind of work. We devote a full day to bereavement,” she said. Time is also spent learning to turn a patient and to feed him. “We also focus on communication. On the last day we visit an area funeral home.”
Hospice volunteers stay in touch with their assigned family for up to 18 months after the death of the patient, depending on the family’s wishes. They are also encouraged to take time off from hospice work when a case is completed.
“My volunteers are very important to me,” Bridge said. “I try to take care of them so they don’t get burned out.”
John McNiff of Joliet has served as a hospice volunteer since 1987, an association that began that year when Beverly, his wife of 35 years, was near death from a brain tumor.
According to McNiff, she was placed in the St. Joseph hospice program for six weeks before she came home, where volunteers had arranged a special bed and lift for her. She lived for another six weeks there.
“They (hospice volunteers) were so good to her,” he said. “They couldn’t do enough. They would send over babysitters so I could get out.”
That experience led him into volunteering. “I can see where we do help these people,” he said. Though his wife couldn’t speak, he said he could sense that she was happy to be home. “I think that’s true of 99 percent of the patients.”
Shorewood residents Dick and Jackie Kelly became involved with the hospice after watching Jackie’s mother struggle after several strokes. A registered nurse, Jackie said she and her husband handled her mother’s care alone but said it made her realize the need for hospice care.
“It was tough,” she said. “I didn’t want anyone to go through what we had to go through by ourselves.”
And despite her nursing training, Jackie said she had qualms about working with patients who she knew were going to die. But as a volunteer, which she has done for five years, she doesn’t do anything more than a good neighbor or friend would do, she said. Dick followed Jackie through the volunteer training course a year later.
The Kellys’ responsibilities have included picking up a patient’s medication, running errands, sitting with the patient while the spouse gets some time away, doing dishes and scrubbing floors.
“It’s a real stressful time for the families,” Dick said. “Probably the biggest thing we do is listen. We’ve developed some friendships that have continued.”
Joliet resident Ginny Garvey decided nine years ago to devote her spare time to volunteering. “Even as a nurse, I never thought I could handle working with dying patients,” she recalls. “I just fell in love with the patients. The more I worked, the more I learned that most of the patients accepted death. These patients are very courageous and they’re all beautiful people.”
As a volunteer, she is not allowed to use her nursing skills while on duty (the hospice has 10 full-time and 15 part-time employes, including some nurses). Instead, she usually sits with her patients, allowing the family to take a break. She also has taken children for the day, gone grocery shopping and taken the patient to the doctor’s office.
“The main thing is to listen and then to help with whatever the family or patient seems to need,” Garvey said. “I’ve learned a lot from (the patients). I get a lot more from them than I ever give.” Her husband, Joseph, also volunteers.
Joliet resident Mary Ferretti has been volunteering since the hospice began. She gives her time in the office, helping out where needed. “I live alone and was a little too old to get a job but I wanted to do something,” she said. “I get more out of being here than I give. This is one of the most worthwhile things people can do.”
Perhaps the toughest part about being a volunteer is dealing with the inevitable sense of loss, since the program only takes on patients who have been diagnosed as having six months or less to live. But for these volunteers the benefits outweigh the negatives.
“As a volunteer, I get everything back as much as I give,” Dick Kelly said. “Hospice families are so ready to share, so ready to give. They really share their lives with us.”
For more information about the hospice program or to volunteer, call 815-740-4104.
