Greatgrant forHospice
St Andrew’s Hospice has received £7,725 from the Scottish Government Wellbeing Fund to provide their new Hearty Hospice Meals services to patients and carers throughout Lanarkshire.
During the pandemic, St Andrew’s Hospice has continued to support patients and carers who are unable to attend Outpatient and Wellbeing services by offering weekly support calls.
During one of these support calls, a patient expressed to the team that despite relatives and neighbours bringing her groceries, they were struggling to prepare and cook nutritious meals due to fatigue and reduced dexterity.
The Hospice’s Outpatient , Catering and Facilities teams pulled together and created ‘Hearty Hospice Meals’ which would enable up to 12 patients and their carers to be provided with a freshly cooked homemade two course meal, three days per week.
The team applied for funding from the Scottish Government Wellbeing Fund to run Hearty Hospice Meals and were awarded £7,725.55 to provide the new service for three months.
St Andrew’s Hospice is now looking for additional funding to continue the service due to the positive impact it’s having on patients and their carers shielding at home.
Anne is retired and lives alone. She has Parkinson’s disease which has led to reduced mobility.
Since lockdown, Anne has received less support and was struggling to make herself fresh, nutritious meals.
Since the launch of Hearty Hospice Meals, Anne’s sense of wellbeing has improved.
She said: “The meals are absolutely lovely! The menu choice is good, with large portions. I feel this service has improved my health greatly by relieving some of the stresses of lockdown. ”
When Lanarkshire Samaritans volunteer Margaret puts the phone down after a call from someone in despair, she will know their woes, their struggles, their feelings of hopelessness and isolation, and perhaps even their first name.
What she will never know, though, is the next chapter in their story, or how the episode in which she was invited to play a part will end.
She’ll finish her shift at the Lanarkshire branch and go home, never to know whether her simple act of listening might have pulled that person on the end of the phone back from the brink.
But that’s okay. Because the exemplary training delivered to Margaret and other Samaritans volunteers like her ensures that she won’t be carrying such a burden home.
Margaret has been involved with Samaritans for 37 years. Friday is Samaritans Awareness Day, also known as the Big Listen, and the selfless volunteer told the Wishaw Press what led her to get involved with the muchloved charity.
“I volunteered for a very selfish reason many years ago,” explained the 64-year-old.
“It was 1982. I was aged 25 and broke my ankle very badly and couldn’t get out and do the things someone in their 20s would normally do. I needed something to occupy me, something I could do while just sitting there on my own.
“The training back then was very much like the training volunteers receive today, except we didn’t have the technology.
“Even back then, I realised how much support I would get in joining this organisation.”
Margaret is like any ordinary Lanarkshire woman of her age, looking forward to retiring from her full-time job in a large energy firm’s contact centre, where the calls she takes come from householders whose boilers are broken and in need of repair.
But what she does when she steps into the Samaritans’ Lanarkshire branch in Selkirk Place in Hamilton is far from ordinary.
It’s there Margaret takes calls from lost souls, many of whom are broken and feel they can never be mended and put back together.
Calls from any part of the UK can filter through to that humble office behind a green door, day or night, from people in crisis who can be at their lowest ebb and have dialled 116 123 to share their troubles with a perfect stranger.
“I don’t think you have to be a particular type of person to be a Samaritans volunteer,” explained Margaret.
“You don’t need to have a particular faith – but you do need to have faith in the organisation.
“The Lanarkshire branch is very fortunate to have the people we have, and that’s true of all of Scotland.
“They come from all different walks of life, but share one common ideal: they want to see a reduction in instances of suicide.
“You can’t make people’s minds up for them. It’s for people to speak to us when they need us, not for us to speak to them. You need to be non-judgmental and always keep your listening skills on.
“When people call, they can be speaking to anyone, anywhere in Great Britain, and all Samaritans have been trained to the same high standard.
“No-one has their own Samaritan to phone. That wouldn’t be encouraged.”
Covid-19 has brought with it all kinds of challenges for many people, not least those who struggle with their emotional health.
“I would say calls are steady, it’s always busy,” continued Margaret, “but people do mention coronavirus when they call because, if they have another anxiety and something else going on in their lives, this can be terrible.
“Many people now have emotional problems – more so than before.
“The beauty of the Samaritans and other organisations is we are encouraging people to open up more, as we have always done.
“While it is not good that people have emotional health problems, it is good that the message is out there.
“As with most things in life, what can be a big problem to one person can be a tiny thing to somebody else. It is great