As you approach its end of life, isolation and forgetting when they are there are an ordeal that is added to physical suffering. Distant family, fear of loved ones to face their own loss of autonomy, among others.
“We are not here to do but to be”
The vocation of the Polinoise association Jamalv seeks to fill this deficiency. His volunteers will visit patients of the EHPADs of the town, Sellières, the arbois follow -up service, palliative care, on indication of nurses or solicitation of families. Created in 2000, the association has only four visitors who will be joined by three others this fall after their training. Too little.
“We are not here to do but to be,” says Laurent Gaudin. Being an interlocutor, a vis-à-vis, a ear. “I lost my father from a car accident. I have always regretted not having been with him, ”says Marie-Laure Magnin. Despite her “sickly sensitivity” and the fear of death, Marie-Laure was formed to adopt the right listening posture, benevolent presence. Even with this patient in a coma. “I don’t know if you hear me,” she said before commenting aloud the family photos on his bedside table, hoping he hears. Her husband Bruno, a former geriatrician, knew the “lack of human dimension” of a palliative care service. His new role as listening “brings him humanly a lot”.
A rich human experience
It can be ungrateful a priori. Laurent Gaudin remembers this patient who has not won a word for ten sessions, just indicating a movement from the head to the visitor where to sit. “At 11e Session, he welcomed me with a “Hello Laurent!” ». I would have cried. If we doubted the service rendered by Jamalv, Sylvie Clément, in her training, follows volunteers in palliative care. “I have seen bedside ladies waiting for the visitor like the Messiah,” observes Sylvie. She is impatient to play this role in turn. Odile Gerbet, who is anxious before entering a patient’s room, testifies to the satisfaction that wins him by leaving.
The Polinoise team, attached to the values of dignity, respect for life, solidarity, hopes to trigger new vocations to support patients with serious illness, the elderly, people at the end of their lives and their loved ones. A human experience rich in its intense exchanges.
Contact Jamalv (until death accompany life). Telephone: 07.60.03.60.92 or 06.33.09.67.68. E-mail: [email protected]
