Hospice care provides physical and emotional support to the dying and their families. Volunteers undergo training in palliative care, including communication, pain management, and infection control. They commit to a certain number of hours per week for at least one year.
The term hospice refers to the general physical and emotional care given to the dying and their families, in hospital and home environments. Inpatient hospitals often utilize volunteers to provide companionship and companionship to terminally ill patients in conjunction with their medical and nursing staff. Hospice volunteers undergo varying degrees of facility orientation and palliative care training before formally commencing service to the organization. Volunteer palliative care training often includes familiarization with the physical and emotional processes of dying, the stages of death, the definition and method of coping with grief, and the different methods of providing care and support to the terminally ill patient. To meet all legal and healthcare requirements, training in hospitals may also involve infection control, privacy, and advanced formal guidelines.
Hospice training for volunteers can involve approximately twenty to forty hours of instruction and guidance over the course of a few weeks. In turn, volunteers are asked to volunteer a certain number of hours per week for a minimum of one year. The amount of time hospice volunteers pledge can range from two hours a week to as much as the organization sets. Volunteers are only asked to commit to what hours they will be able to serve consistently. Palliative care training is usually conducted in small groups and classes are held on an as-needed basis.
Communication and company are heavily emphasized in palliative care training for volunteers. These are not small or unimportant tasks. The processes of death and dying often frighten friends, family and terminally ill patients, they are often lonely in the midst of the most alienating situations. Listening is the primary means of communication taught to volunteers during training. Depending on their condition, terminally ill patients may feel the need to relate memories, anecdotes or autobiographical information and volunteers are trained to listen actively.
Palliative care training also introduces the philosophy of palliative care, or comfort care, to volunteers and their role in pain management. For example, pain medication is most effective when given before the pain becomes severe. Patients are sometimes reluctant to ask for pain medication, believing they must wait for a nurse to provide the medication. Volunteers are taught in palliative care training to recognize signs of increasing discomfort – such as irritability, restlessness or, conversely, a kind of stoic immobility – and to notify staff about this. The patient’s medication regimen can be changed to reflect more frequent administration of pain medications.
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