Become an Ohio Living Home Health & Hospice Volunteer

Hospice is a special kind of caring. Hospice care is patient and family centered and seeks to provide support and comfort to those facing a life limiting illness. Volunteers play a large role in this effort by sharing their skills and interests in a manner that enriches the quality of life for those they serve.

Medicare also recognizes the importance of volunteers in the delivery of hospice care. Medicare requires that hospices utilize volunteers from their local community to augment the care the hospice agency provides. Nationally, over 100,000 people serve as hospice volunteers and give millions of hours of their time to serve terminally ill patients and their families.

Hospice volunteers help patients and families in a variety of ways including some of the following:

• Companionship, listening, reading to patients
• Spiritual support
• Yard work, organization
• Creating memories (scrapbooks, audio/visual tapes, etc.)

Hospice volunteers can also provide the agency with clerical support in a variety of ways including:

• Internet research projects
• Photocopying/and filing
• Assembling information packets
• Assisting with mailings
• Making support telephone calls to patients and families