Military Veterans Can Serve Special Role In End-Of-Life Care

One of the Piedmont's largest hospice networks is putting out a call for a wide range of volunteers to better serve its patients, particularly military veterans. They are a growing population nearing the end of life – one out of every four dying Americans is a veteran – and volunteers with war experience can be especially helpful to former soldiers. 

Sheila Jones coordinates hundreds of volunteers each year for Mountain Valley Hospice and Palliative Care to meet the rising need. She says the network is actively seeking veterans to help support their program.

“Patients that served in the military may have had to do some things in their military career that kind of stays with you throughout life. And at the end of life, sometimes that's kind of hard to kind of hash out or deal with," says Jones. “And so we are very proud to be able to put volunteers that were veterans, too, and pair them with those families. It makes it a little bit easier for that patient to transition over and be able to share those things with that person.”

Phillip Mack coordinates the We Honor Veterans program at Mountain Valley Hospice. For him, it's a joy to sit down with vets and allow them to unburden themselves. Mack says a recent story told by a Vietnam veteran will stay with him.

“Most veterans were not welcomed back,"  says Mack. “And to just look him in the eye, and shake his hand and actually welcome him home brought tears to his eyes. He said, ‘You know, no one has ever welcomed me back.' And so for him, knowing that somebody's welcomed [him] home, after all of these years, just—you could see it meant something to him.”

The roughly 400 volunteers there do not perform hands-on care, such as bathing, toileting or bed changing. According to Mack, the average tenure for volunteers is between one and two years.

Mountain Valley Hospice's eight locations service 17 counties in northwestern North Carolina and southern Virginia. It's currently searching for volunteers at their new Yadkin County State Employee's Credit Union Hospice Home.