Help for families: The voluntary hospice accompaniment is so valuable!

Help for families: The voluntary hospice accompaniment is so valuable!

Niederösterreich, Österreich - Hugo Kubik lives with dementia, and his wife Viktoria has been preparing for an enormous challenge for two years. In order not to leave him alone, she used help from Caritas and day care, and now the family receives additional support from a mobile hospice team. This help allows Viktoria to take a coffee with a friend, which has become an important balance for her. In an interview she emphasizes: "I can actually recommend everyone to take advantage of help from the outside, because you can get in situations where you feel overwhelmed," like noe.orf reports.

support from volunteers

The mobile hospice team, represented by Bernadette Janisch, not only offers nursing help, but also emotional support. Janisch, who even has experience in dealing with such strokes of fate, wants to be there for families, spend time together and make it easier to do everyday life. This type of accompaniment is estimated by many families because it is enriching for both those affected and the volunteers. It is important to notice that the volunteers, as Karin Wieseneder explains from the Hospiz Melk association, do not take on nursing or household tasks, but simply give time.
In order to secure the quality of the accompaniment, the volunteers are trained and can exchange ideas with coordinators at any time. In the region, however, there is still a great need for volunteers, especially in the south of Lower Austria and in the Vienna surrounding area, in total there were 744 in the past year.