Volunteer in 'Zonnehuis'

For two years now Brother Ted van der Geest has been doing volunteer work in the Palliative Unit of 'Zonnehuis' nursing home in Vlaardingen, The Netherlands. An impression of morning duty in a ward for terminally-ill patients.
[All names are fictitious.]

Making a search together

When at nine o'clock in the morning I enter the living room of the unit, Mr Zuidgeesr and Mrs Luijten, drawn up in their wheelchairs, are already at the dining table ready for breakfast. Mrs Luijten can prepare her own sandwich, but Mr Zuidgeest cannot do this any more, so that I do this for him. Chatting all the time, he eats half of the cut up sandwich, takes his medicine and drinks a cup of tea. Then I wheel him to his room, help him from his wheelchair into his adjustable armchair, switch on his TV and go to the livingroom to do the washing-up.

Mrs Luijten does the drying-up, which takes up five times more time than it would take me, but in this way she has something to do and it gives her the sense of making my work lighter. Besides suffering from a somatic complaint, from which she will die before long, she is also mentally disturbed. She misses her husband and wants the two of us to search for him. I wheel her in her chair past all the rooms of the ward, which has a calming effect on her.

When, however, we stop somewhere to watch how inmates 'help' the supervisor of activities in making an apple tart as far as this is possible, she becomes restless again. and in a plaintive tone of voice she calls for her husband Charles. So I pretend we go on searching for him. When the nurse gives her a tablet she calms down a bit and I can leave her on her own with an illustrated magazine to make coffee. A little time later Mrs Luijten has dozed off in her wheelchair, which gives me an opportunity to have a chat with Mrs Helsloot. She lies in bed and is very tired, because she has had a bath this morning. This has required a lot of energy from her deadly sick body. She faces her approaching end with resignation, reads a lot, listens to church services recorded on tape, receives many telephone calls and has many visitors. And so our chat is not such a long one, for after ten minutes there is a call for her.

The Lord is my helper

Now that the four persons entrusted to my care either are asleep or have a visitor, I just pay a short visit to Mr Rekers in another ward. Every time I visit him I am moved because of the way he manages to deal with the wasting disease he is suffering from. The only things he can still do is talk well and press with his right hand the buttons of his scooter and turn the pages of his bible. From this bible he draws so much support and confidence that I always find him in a cheerful mood. It is astounding that a person knows how to resign himself so well to such an awful situation. What strength of mind in this faltering body! It brings us, who often pay more attention to 'body building' than to the building of character and of personality, to our senses. My visit does both of us good; it strengthens us to continue on our own quite different paths of life.

Volunteers are necessary

Any person who has ever been in a nursing home, must have seen that the nurses cannot by any means always give the inmates the attention they need. As a volunteer I can help to improve this to a certain extent. After having been a teacher for forty years I have enough vitality left to offer some help to people in such a situation. What have not those that live here had to sacrifice! Close my eyes, my heart for this, and think of false excuses for standing aloof, I cannot possibly do that! They reckon on my being there. Also now, at half past twelve. From the central kitchen the meals have been brought up, which I am warming up now in the microwave. I have to help Mr Zuidgeest and Mrs Helsloot more or less in eating, Mrs Luijten can manage all right.

At one o'clock another volunteer takes over, but there is none for tonight ...

Source: Oriëntatie FIC, 2002, nr. 1

Author: Ted van der Geest, f.i.c.

Translation: Theo van Schaick, f.i.c.