THE Victoria Hospital formally launched its “Volunteer for Health care Programme” designed specifically for students looking for an opportunity to partner with health care professionals while supporting patients and families in a health care environment.
Volunteer positions are available in selected departments at the hospital, each with the goal of enhancing, engaging and motivating the volunteer for the future while improving the patient and family experience.
Assistant Director of HR, Elena Plummer said though volunteerism has existed at Victoria Hospital for quite some time, management saw the need to create a proper structure for the programme for the mutual benefit of the hospital and the volunteer.
“We have a number of objectives for this volunteer for health care delivery programme at the Victoria Hospital. One, we want to provide volunteers with a meaningful work experience and the opportunity to develop new skills. Two, we want to enhance and motivate the volunteers and that is why our focus is on young persons, although all persons are welcomed. Three, we want to assist and guide interested persons in fulfilling their career goals.”
Danielle Gordon who currently teaches at the St. Joseph’s Convent, is a former volunteer at the Ezra Long Laboratory at Victoria Hospital. She was instrumental in creating the database for post-mortems in St. Lucia and also assisted in developing the inventory structure for the blood bank and Ezra Long Laboratory.
Ms. Gordon has a degree in Biochemistry with a minor in Biology and a Specialist in Microsoft Office Word, Access and Excel. She had encouraging words for other volunteers:
“I think we should always give back to the places that have given us a lot. St. Lucia this is where my foundation is, although I have gone away to school, I have come back and I think I have to give back and that’s why I opted to give back to Ezra Long Laboratory. I also volunteered at the Royal St. Lucia Police Force where I did the exhibits submission database for them where we have the storage of exhibits being tracked. So it’s always important to give back to where you started.”
Senior Pharmacist at the Victoria Hospital, Abraham Weekes is part of the management team who helped create the structure for the volunteer of health care programme. He said the programme grew out of a need to contribute to society as part of the hospital’s corporate-social responsibility as the leading health care institution on island.
“This initiative was led by our illustrious Executive Director, Mrs. Jeanette Hughes and she saw the need that we all saw. We are moving to a new hospital; there is a need for human resource, so we’re looking towards the future. Of course those persons will also help us with the immediate move but the goal is the future…We want to create professionals who care about people and who care about the delivery of health care. So the programme is structured in such a way to expose young persons and persons who volunteer to many aspects of health care delivery, professionalism, work ethics and a number of different areas.”
The Volunteer for Healthcare Programme was officially launched on Tuesday. Interested persons can contact the Victoria Hospital for more information.