Caring for a person in their last days of life is a privileged experience and one that Debbie Stevens, volunteer coordinator at Mercy Hospice, feels grateful for.
Debbie Stevens was filled with so much gratitude for the unwavering care that the volunteers, doctors, and nurses at Mercy Hospice gave her mother in her last few weeks of life, that a couple of years later she made the heartfelt decision to volunteer at the hospice as well – she wanted to extend the same experience to others who were navigating the closing chapters of their lives.
“The care my mum received while in hospice was the complete antithesis to the experience she’d had while in hospital – which is where she had been before being moved to Mercy,” says Debbie. “Mercy is like sliding into a comfortable glove for patients. They are surrounded by peaceful care in an environment that is free of beeping machines and bustling medics. We call it the ‘cloak of care’. We wrap this cloak around both the patient and their family and look after them as best as we can. We care for the whole person – not just their physical needs, but also their emotional, spiritual, and social needs. The workers at hospice are often referred to as ‘angels’, and rightly so.”
Taken by the camaraderie and enjoyment that the hospice ‘drinks trolley’ brought to the patients and their visitors when it did its daily rounds at 4.30pm, Debbie took on the trolley role each Wednesday for 15 years. “The clink, clink, clink of the bottles and glasses as you push the drinks trolley down the hallway is one of the most anticipated times of day in the patient unit,” says Debbie. “Fully stocked with wine, spirits and soft drinks, the trolley is something for everyone to look forward to each day, bringing a sense of normality in what is otherwise a difficult time.”
During Debbie’s time volunteering at Mercy, she also drove patients to appointments and acted as a companion to some of them, and families, under hospice care.
Earlier this year, Debbie moved into the important role of Volunteer Coordinator for Patient Care Services – overseeing the volunteers that have patient contact, while her colleague, Sue Campin, looks after the volunteers that work in the eight secondhand retail stores dotted around Auckland.
Providing a range of specialist community care and hospice services for people facing life-limiting illnesses, Mercy Hospice has up to 350 patients in the community under their care at any one time, and also has eight inpatient beds at Mercy Hospice, Ponsonby. All Mercy’s services are offered free to patients and their families within the Auckland district of Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand.
Vital to the success of the organisation, Mercy Hospice has over 520 volunteers who donate more than 61,000 hours of their time a year to help look after the patients. “The volunteers are an integral part of what we do,” says Debbie. “Mercy Hospice couldn’t run without them. Thanks to their energy and commitment, patients and families can enjoy support and connection that would otherwise not be possible.”
There are many areas in which volunteers can help. Some of the more popular roles include working in a Mercy Hospice retail store, running the trolley service (morning tea, afternoon tea and early evening drinks) in the patient unit, being a companion to patients or their families, being a driver for the patients to and from their appointments, as well as life story writers who help record the patients’ life stories, or help put together a memory box or other legacy that they may wish to leave their family.
“What is really interesting” says Debbie, “is that Mercy is actually, believe it or not, a very happy place to work. There’s always a lot of laughter because it’s our job to make people as happy as they can be when facing death. We are so much more than ‘just a place people go to die’. Every day something happens at Mercy that makes me feel extremely fulfilled. I used to own an importing and wholesale business and looking back now it seems quite meaningless, to be honest, because now I’m actually making a difference to people’s lives. Working here has shown me that we need to live every day the best we can because death is something that comes to each and every one of us, whether we want it to or not.”
Debbie’s advice for anyone interested in volunteering at Mercy Hospice is to “just do it”: “Don’t hesitate. It’s so rewarding. You get back twice what you give. It grounds you and it makes you realise how important your own life is and how small your problems are in comparison to someone who is facing the end of their life.”
Mercy Hospice receives only half of its funding from Te Whatu Ora Health New Zealand and the rest is raised by people in the community. Whether it is attending a Mercy fundraising event, volunteering, donating, or purchasing from the Mercy Hospice retail shops, there are many ways in which you can help bridge the gap in funding and support the wonderful work that Mercy does.
If anyone is interested in volunteering at Mercy Hospice, please contact Debbie at dstevens@mh.org.nz
