Hilmi and Deb Hilmi are an altruistic pair. The husband and wife each volunteer 15 hours a week at Sunshine Hospital to make life easier for patients and staff.
Their jobs vary across the week and can include everything from making cups of tea and coffee to pushing the library trolley or talking to patients and being a visitor’s guide.
Deb started volunteering nearly two years ago, and Hilmi started soon after.
“It started when Hilmi’s mum was in hospital … I noticed there were things that the nurses didn’t have time to do, like opening up the soup and the cutlery and things like that,” Mrs Hilmi said.
“I thought, they must need somebody to do that, so I went and enquired.”
The pair said that volunteering helped them put life into perspective.
“We love it,” Mrs Hilmi said. “I think I get a lot more out of it than any of the patients do. You get a lot of compliments. Even if you just make a cup of coffee for someone, they’ll say, ‘Oh, I needed that; thank goodness you’re here’.
“The fact that there’s somebody there to talk to makes all the difference because some of them don’t even have visitors.”
Mr Hilmi adds: “I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope with it, because I’m not really much of a talker, but listening to some of the stories that patients tell you, when they talk about the life they had and the old days, you meet some really interesting people.”
Western Health has more than 400 volunteers across the Sunshine, Western and Williamstown hospitals.
To join them, call Karin Haufe-Stellini on 8345 0491.
