They are volunteers to accompany people at the end of life. The Gard palliative care association is facing strong demand from families and healthcare teams. An appointment this Thursday to better understand.
They are about fifty volunteers in the Gard, but could be much more numerous. “It is an essential enrichment, we are at the heart of life”. Hélène Deronne, volunteer of the association Soins Palliatifs 30, member of a national network renamed Etre là, is no longer its president. She gave way to Dominique Prat, ex-head of service at the CHU. “Our volunteers have all types of profiles and backgrounds. We intervene either at the request of people at the end of life, or their families, or sometimes healthcare teams who contact us and the requests are enormous… Our role is simple , we reach out. Physically and morally. We are listening” says Hélène Deronne.
“You are the receptacle, you have to strip yourself of yourself”
The concept of palliative care has been known for thirty years ” but it was really pain management. Countries like Canada were ahead of us. Medicine has since made great progress, but caregivers are in technology, they don’t have time to ‘to be at the side of people. But today we have broken families, elderly people in great loneliness…” analyzes Dominique Prat.
Volunteers must train, one weekend per month during the first year, then participate in discussion groups led by a psychologist once a month. Volunteer time is approximately four hours per week. “You are the receptacle, you have to learn to strip yourself of yourself, leave everything in the hallway to welcome the word of the person, who sometimes is angry, scared, or serene. For my part, this has enriched me enormously. It is the meeting of the essential”.
A play to de-dramatize
The association invites this Thursday, June 16, at 5:30 p.m., to a play-forum, at the Daudet high school. “End of Chapter” is a play around the character of Don Quixote, dying, and very badly accompanied… “We talk about several scenarios and we invite people from the public to come and replay the scene differently, we want to play down this subject and make it better understood”, continues Hélène Deronne. The meeting will end with an exchange with Doctor Blanchard, head of the palliative care unit of the CHU (free on reservation [email protected] 04 66 21 30 83)
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