Getting some fresh air, stretching your legs, browsing in the shop in the reception hall ... Anyone who has been in hospital as a patient before will agree: getting out of the room for a while can be pleasant. Does the patient need assistance? Then they can call on a volunteer, who will be happy to lend a hand.
Who can call on these volunteers?
All patients hospitalised for several days at the Gasthuisberg campus:
- patients who can walk by themselves and patients who move by wheelchair or other walking aids;
- patients who speak Dutch and patients who speak another language;
- patients without disabilities and patients with disabilities.
What can you call on a volunteer for?
For example, the volunteer accompanies the patient to the shop, the ATM, the cafeteria, the chapel, the smoking area or for a walk outside. In short, any movement on the hospital campus that does not have a medical or research purpose .
How to request a volunteer?
The request for a volunteer to come and take a patient out of the room for a while goes through the healthcare worker. The patient therefore requests this assistance through a nurse on the ward.
- In the morning (between 09:00 and 12:00), a volunteer dispatcher registers all requests.
- In the afternoon requests are carried out by the other volunteers present.
Please note: patients can therefore only be escorted out of their rooms in the afternoon.
Important to know
No, the request for a volunteer to take a patient out of the room for a while always goes through the healthcare provider. So the patient requests this assistance from a nurse on the ward.
The patient may include a date and time in the request that may or may not fit. The volunteer dispatcher tries to take this into account as much as possible. Depending on the number of requests per day, the assigned time may differ from that target time.
In principle, the volunteer is available as long as the patient needs accompaniment to a desired place. Depending on the number of requests per day, the accompaniment may be shorter or longer.
No, the volunteers are only available in the afternoon to accompany patients out of the room for a while.
Sure. Patients who use wheelchairs or walking aids can also call on a volunteer to be accompanied out of the room for a while.
No, volunteers are not trained for this. A nurse on the ward will help the patient into the wheelchair so that they can be picked up in time by the volunteer. When the volunteer brings the patient back to the room, a nurse will take over again.
This is possible, as long as it is properly communicated upfront at the time of application.
No, the volunteers only operate at Gasthuisberg campus and do not accompany patients outside the hospital.