No, it’s not depressing to be a volunteer in palliative care
No, it is not depressing to be a volunteer working with patients at the West Island Palliative Care Residence, says Heather Lefebvre, who is there every week. Not depressing at all.
“There’s a life to the place. It’s an awesome place to be,” she said. “It is about living — and that is why it is so awesome. You feel the energy, the empathy, the love and the caring.
“There is a spirit to the place. The families who come in know that their loved one is in a better place.”
Hers is one of those families. Lefebvre’s husband, Robert, died at the Kirkland hospice in September of 2008. He had lung cancer. He was 66. Her mother died there, too, in early 2010, at 88. Lefebvre knew she wanted to do something to express her gratitude and appreciation. The April following her mother’s death, she started the training course for volunteers.
“I can’t afford to give huge donations,” she said. “This my way of giving back.”
As a patient- care volunteer, her work “is about comforting the family, the small things. They come in and they feel like they are at home.”
An important function of the hospice is to relieve the family of the primary responsibilities of caregiving, such as bathing and changing and feeding. A weight is lifted from the shoulders of family members, said Joanne Myers, director of development at the residence. “Families are greeted at the door,” she said. “We are telling the family, ‘ We are going to take care of you.’ “
As soon as he arrived, “Robert just blossomed — and he was here only 24 hours,” Lefebvre said. “He was looking at pictures with the family. Now he knew we could all relax.”
One of the nurses became Robert’s “angel”, she recalled. She had grown up in Pointe- Claire, as he had, and they knew many of the same people. “It just perked him up so much to be talking about friends.”
Said Myers: “Families mention that the nurses and volunteers make the unbearable bearable. It makes a difference also in the grieving process to know that their loved ones died in peace.”
The rooms are spacious and private and bright — indeed, the entire residence it suffused with light from large windows everywhere — and an easy chair in each room opens out into a comfortable bed for family members who want to stay overnight. The public rooms are inviting, with upholstered furniture. It is not a sad place.
Lefebvre’s responsibilities include helping the nurses to bathe patients “to make them fresh and nice for the day.” She also helps patients to order their meals, if they’re still eating, and picks up their dirty dishes.
They’re offered what’s on the menu — the choices last Tuesday included cream of mushroom soup, mac & cheese, puff pastry with ham and spinach — but they can choose something else if that’s what they feel like.
She also visits with those patients and family members who want to talk.
On occasion, Lefebvre has been asked to help nurses to prepare patients who have died for when the family comes in — to change their nightclothes and straighten the bed. She recalled one occasion when the nurse was speaking to the person who had died the entire time she was working. “And I thought, ‘ How beautiful’. It was such a beautiful moment.”
Lefebvre, 68, is part of a pool of about 250 volunteers, of whom 100 are active. They work close to 20,000 hours a year, with patients or in the kitchen, at reception, in the laundry or the garden. It’s the equivalent of 10 full- time jobs.
When she started to volunteer, she worked a Friday evening shift. She still had her day job then, as an administrator in a real- estate office. But when she retired in 2012, she wanted to work days. “I find the morning shift is the busiest. I love it. The time just flies.”
Asked what qualities make someone a good volunteer in palliative care, Lefebvre answered, “Empathy. You have to love to be with people. A gentleness. And a very positive attitude. It’s a feeling I have inside that all the volunteers have; just caring and compassion and wanting to give back.”
Each patient is given a handmade quilt on arrival, made by members of Montreal- area quilters’ guilds, and the quilt is on the gurney that bears the patient out of the residence.
“When the funeral parlour people come to take them from the room, we ask that people stay out of the hallway,” Lefebvre said. “We stand, out of respect, as the gurney goes out the front door.”
Bereavement services are offered to families for a year. “I took bereavement counselling after Robert died,” she recalled. “It had to be one of the best things for me. You laugh, you cry. I was fine sometimes and other times bawling.”
When she leaves after her shift, Lefebvre is prepared for the fact that a patient might not be there when she returns the following week. At the beginning, that was difficult for her.
“You just care about the patients,” she said. “But that is the only time I would be sad.”