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By Darren Rathwell

Local health care not back to normal, despite call for volunteers: officials

Apr 25, 2022 | 3:21 PM

MEDICINE HAT — Alberta Health Services says health care isn’t back to normal, despite a call for volunteers at all health care facilities in the region.

Most volunteer programs stopped as COVID-19 hit, but now officials are hoping to re-launch them.

AHS officials say the number of volunteers in the South zone is down to 40 percent from pre-pandemic levels.

And while limits remain on hospital visitors, there’s a call now for health care volunteers to help out.

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“If we can just re-institute some of the programs that volunteers offered before COVID, just to assist the staff who’ve worked so hard over the past couple of years by offering such things as bingo or just to give an extra hand in showing patients where to go,” said Carmelle Steel, Manager of Volunteer Resources for the South Zone, “It’s just time for us to get back to work and do those things as safely as we can.”

Steel also notes, however, the move to bring on volunteers could be sidelined by another COVID-19 outbreak.

Among the duties volunteers are needed for include wave-finders, who assist visitors with finding their destination in facilities, and bingo-callers who would help out once a week.

For more information, send an email to volunteer.medhat@albertahealthservices.ca or call 403-529-8847.

As for visitation limits, the Alberta Health Services website says “currently, entry in acute care is limited to patient-identified designated support persons and those visiting a patient at the end-of-life.”

Steel says visitation limits remain in place at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital.