It takes a whole community: the contribution of rural hospice volunteers to whole-person palliative care.
Although volunteers are widely acknowledged as important members of the palliative care team, their unique contribution to whole-person care has not been well documented or theorized, especially in rural communities. We conducted a focused ethnography in a small rural community, asking key community informants about their understanding of the role of hospice volunteers with dying people and their families. Our results show that these volunteers inhabit a unique third culture of care that fuses elements of formal care with the informal visiting of friends and neighbours. Their role is shaped to a community context where dying is not a private medical event, but rather a whole-person-in-community event, and where care is offered as a natural expression of the interdependence and reciprocity that characterizes rural community life. Our results are a reminder that it takes an entire community to care for the dying, and that hospice volunteers are a crucial link in the network of care that allows people to die with dignity and quality of life.
McKee
Margaret
M
School of Social Work, Lakehead University, 955 Oliver Road, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. mmckee@lakeheadu.ca
Kelley
Mary Lou
ML
Guirguis-Younger
Manal
M
MacLean
Michael
M
Nadin
Shevaun
S
D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D001294:Attitude to Health; D019058:Community Networks; D006738:Hospices / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D009864:Ontario; D010166:Palliative Care / Q000458:organization & administration; D019035:Rural Health Services / Q000458:organization & administration; D014838:Volunteers; D000078329:Workforce