THEY have just welcomed five new volunteers to their vital service but Mid Hunter Palliative Care coordinator Sue Pope has genuine concerns about where future funding to sustain the not-for-profit organisation will come from.
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The local service provides free emotional support for terminally-ill patients, and their carers, in their homes.
They are trained in communication and listening skills, grief, change and loss as well as compulsory units such as OH&S issues, ethics and protocol.
The volunteers don’t administer medication or clean houses; they are a shoulder to lean on, an ear to listen and a hand to hold.
Sue says it is becoming increasingly difficult for smaller groups like hers to compete against larger Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) for a piece of the health funding pie.
“We thought we were getting cut off on June 30 but thankfully they rolled it over for another 12 months,” she says.
“However, we have also lost a regular donation from employees at a local mine that was closed.”
She says they received about $250 a month from a group of Camberwell Coal employees.
Filling this gap will be difficult, it’s just getting harder and harder, Sue told The Argus.
The service operates in Singleton and Cessnock, and some volunteers over there have initiated fundraising efforts.
However, here in Singleton the management committee has been without a president or secretary for the past two years limiting what can practically be done.
Sue and her only employee, Debbie Freeman-Bryant, just hope some fresh faces turn up at their Annual General Meeting next month to step up and take on a role.
“We don’t have a problem getting volunteers to help others, the problem is filling the management committee roles,” she says.
“Most volunteers say they get more out of the experience than those they are assisting – it is very emotionally rewarding.
“You meet so many different people and really touch their lives.”
So much so, the volunteers have monthly lunches with those who have been left behind after a loved one they are caring for passes away.
For more information contact 0407 072 610 or email office@midhunterpalcare.com.au