Page 27 - Sphere No.17 (Sep 2006)

SPHERE 25
Hospice care is a new type of
medical service on the Mainland, and
more needs to be done in a society
where death is still a taboo subject.
A LESSON IN MEDICAL ETHICS FOR HOSPICE VOLUNTEERS
DUE TO THE unique spirit of service it embodies,
hospice care has attracted not just professional
medical personnel, but also a growing number of
volunteers. Among their main tasks, the volunteers accom-
pany patients on visits to doctors, help patients make medi-
cal appointments, and provide timely feedback regarding pa-
tients’ conditions to the doctors in the hospices.
They also collect medicines from the hospices for pa-
tients or their family members, and help with invalid pa-
tients’ domestic chores and the homework of patients’
young children. In addition, the volunteers
make occasional home visits to patients, dur-
ing which they read the newspapers to them,
take them out for walks and provide counsel-
ling. The patients’ family members are not ne-
glected. The volunteers assist them in finding
solutions to their difficulties, for example, by
obtaining information on job vacancies.
There are approximately 5,000 hospice vol-
unteers nationwide, of whom 70 per cent are
undergraduates.Although most of the medical
personnel involved in palliative care are expe-
rienced clinical physicians and nurses, there are far too few
of them to meet the demand. More participation from the
community is desperately needed. As future doctors, medi-
cal students are the most obvious source of volunteers, and
the first hospice volunteer team comprised of undergradu-
ates on the Mainland was formed in the Shantou University
Medical College.
Volunteer recruitment campaigns at the Shantou Univer-
sity Medical College invariably meet with a very positive re-
sponse. When asked about their reason for applying, most
students cite a desire to gain experience and exposure in
hospice care. However, as hospice volunteers, these students
stand to benefit from much more than work experience.
There was a student from out of town who, after los-
ing the map showing the way to his patient’s home, cycled
several hours on the streets looking for the house. Another
student who was delivering medicine on a rainy day became
upset, not because he was drenched from head to toe but
because the knapsack containing analgesic medication had
become wet. Then there was the student who spent the
night surfing the Net to collect informa-
tion on job vacancies for his patient’s family
members. Another did all he could to bor-
row books for a patient’s despondent little
girl, and was rewarded with a delighted smile.
These examples indicate the degree of re-
sponsibility and care that the current batch of
undergraduates have for their community.
As they are giving, the volunteers are also
receiving a lesson in professional ethics. Each
time they follow a doctor to a patient’s home,
they will be moved by what they see and will
come to recognise the value of hospice care, as well as
the importance of their future vocations as caregivers and
lifesavers.
The patient bedside manner of palliative care doctors, and
the obvious love they have for their jobs, show the volun-
teers how doctors should conduct themselves. Given the
prevailing ethical issues such as bribes and favouritism in
Chinese medical circles today, volunteering in hospices is an
uplifting lesson in medical ethics, which cannot be taught in
the classrooms.