Volunteering has enriched my life in so many ways over so many years. In my heart I am still a volunteer at Calvary.

The nurses at Calvary developed the volunteer program and I did my training in 1994. I continued volunteering until 2014 when my wife got sick and needed me at home. Before this, I was working three days a week at Calvary. The work was always satisfying and I never thought about quitting.

I helped the nurses with shaving patients and sometimes I did haircuts for men. I would fetch and carry whatever the nurses needed, changed water in the flowers and tidied the patients’ areas. I also helped with feeding the patients in palliative care, as did many of the volunteers.

I’m a good listener and sometimes patients and their families just wanted a chat.

I have sat with many family members whose loved one was unconscious, but perhaps still able to hear us, as a loved one reminisced about their lives together. I enjoyed listening and connecting with the people I met at the hospital.

I started as an altar boy at nine years of age and that involved serving mass on Sundays and during the week. I joined the St Vincent de Paul Society in my latter years at school and after with the Enmore Conference.

I resumed my connection when I moved to the Kogarah area.

They had been asked by the sisters at Calvary if anyone was available to come and shave the men on Sundays because there were very few men involved in the care of patients at that time.

I was attracted to this group, so I went to Calvary Health Care Kogarah and it grew from there. I got to know other volunteers and they introduced me to the Volunteer Manager at Calvary, who interviewed me and took me on as a official volunteer. The volunteers back then were known as ‘buddies’.

The volunteering fitted in with my philosophy about life.

As a Christian, the basic rule is to love God and love your neighbour by doing things that are helpful. I worked for 44 years at the Commonwealth bank, a public institution with rules, much the same as a hospital, so I fitted right in.

There was a strong camaraderie between the volunteers.

We were all motivated and we shared that this work is its own reward. We got self-satisfaction from what we were doing, believers and non-believers alike. I grew in the job and it is one of the most worthwhile things I have done in my life.

We always had to wash our hands with soap and water. We learnt about pain medication to help us understand what was happening for the patient. The only thing I can remember is that Panadol and Paracetamol don’t have any side effects.

My memories are legitimate and valid, but they may not always be correct after the passage of so much time!

The patients showed their gratitude to us, as volunteers, and I have received many cards, letters and messages over the years from patients’ families. I still have these reminders of the work we did and how much it was appreciated.

One day a patient said to one of the nuns in Pastoral Care ‘I have never done anything good the way that Tom does’.

He was a butcher and I reminded him that he had a daily connection and personal relationship with his customers and this was the same thing that I was doing in my volunteer work. His customers trusted him and responded to the care and interest he showed them. I hope this is what I have given to patients at Calvary over 30 plus years.

Going into palliative care as a volunteer helped me to face my worst fear about the ‘death house on the hill’, which is how locals referred to the hospital back then. Some people didn’t look sideways when they were passing the hospital on the bus.

The highlights of volunteering for me are the commitment I made to people in Calvary to serve them and the rewards they gave me in return.

Thank you for letting me be part of this moment in their lives. It enriched my life.

I have shared my poems with patients, their families, staff and volunteers. I had four poetry books which did the rounds of the hospital and hopefully provided some comfort to people. I’ll leave you with two poems I wrote for volunteers I worked with over the years.

Tuesdays at Calvary

Tuesdays at Calvary will never be the same,

For it was each Tuesday that Cal came.

To kneel at Mass and humbly pray.

Then massage feet throughout the day.

For twenty-three years, he came each week,

Gain or acclaim he did not seek.

But quietly limped from room to room,

Inspiring hope and banishing gloom.

We each have our memories of this man of grace.

He enriched our lives. He adorned this place.

He died at home in an easy chair

With grateful spirits hovering there.

Cal was ready when the Master came.

He did not suffer. He felt no pain.

He walked with grace through the eternal door.

He will live forever. He will limp no more.

Joy at Calvary

The doctors shook their heads that day,

They could do no more for him.

Transferred he was to Calvary’s care,

His prospects worse than grim.

But there he met a volunteer who came into his room.

She changed her name each time she came,

like April, May and June.

She came, it seemed, most every day,

she never missed a beat.

She made his bed, she stroked his head,

her hands massaged his feet.

She held the water to his lips,

she spoonfed every meal.

His woes, it seemed, were at an end,

“thank God” for fortune’s wheel.

One day she came, ‘twas not the same,

they said old Bill was dead.

But, in his room, she found him soon,

he’d changed his name to Ted.

And so she laboured o’er the years,

for sisters and for brothers.

She learned full well a wholesome truth:

the joy of helping others.