Sometimes the close-knit rural community is too powerful. There is no place for others.
That has been the experience of some rural people who volunteer to visit the terminally ill. The bedside is already crowded with family, friends and church members.
Volunteers can get discouraged with their underuse, said Ruth Quiring, in charge of palliative care for the North-East Health District of Saskatchewan. She told a national conference on caring for the terminally ill that in rural areas the patient often has an informal support system, so the district’s trained volunteers can feel left out.
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Prospective volunteers are recruited through advertisements and posters, then undergo a screening process and training. Quiring said volunteers in her district are often used in respite to give the family caregiver a break or for running errands for the family, rather than actually comforting the patient.
Able to relate
However, a British Columbia palliative care researcher found volunteers bring something more to the bedside. Lois Brummet said when her mother was dying, a volunteer about the same age as her mother came to see her. At the end of the visit, her mother didn’t want the volunteer to go because of their enjoyable chat. Brummet said even though she was an adult, to her mother she was still a child.
Not everyone chooses to die at home. Quiring estimates about 10 percent are choosing home over hospital, but the number is increasing. The trend is partly due to home care services now being offered throughout the province and also because families feel more confident about being able to care for a dying relative at home.
