Volunteers Continue to Serve Ohio’s Community Mercy Hospice During COVID-19

Ohio’s Community Mercy Hospice volunteers may not be able to make patient visits during COVID-19, but they won’t let that keep them from showing care and support for their patients. 

Several volunteers are calling their patients and family members to check in on them. They also are sending cards to their patients and the Ohio’s Hospice Community Mercy staff. In addition, animal-assisted therapy teams have sent videos and pictures for the nurses and social workers to show patients. 

“I have a volunteer who had been a friendly visitor to one of our Hospice patients at a local nursing home,” said Tami Clark, volunteer coordinator at Ohio’s Community Mercy Hospice. “She would bring the patient dinner one night a week and eat his meal with him. She has continued this volunteer role but in a different way. She called the nursing home and they arranged for her to bring him his meal and leave it outside the door to the nursing home. She calls the nurse when she gets there and the nurse will go get it and take it to the patient.” 

The Ohio’s Community Mercy Hospice volunteer outreach callers for Pathways of Hope are still making calls during this time as well.

“With a lot of people home because of COVID-19, the outreach callers are able to actually talk with many people unlike leaving messages that they sometimes normally do,” Clark said. “Each of the volunteer callers for Ohio’s Community Mercy Hospice have shared what it is like during this time to talk with bereaved individuals, some who have not been able to have a funeral yet. They are going the extra mile, making the calls.”

To learn how to become a volunteer, call 937.390.9665, or visit our website.