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Photo by J. Peter Hvidsten GIVE Program at LHPP is passionate volunteering at its best One of the greatest looming area’s of concern the health care system is facing today, is the march of the elderly into our hospitals and how to deal with the unique problems they bring with them. We in North America have not been kind to our elders; we revere the culture of youth. RN Joni Mountford, of Lakeridge Health Port Perry, points out, “Our so- cial system is commerce based, youth focused and totally commercialized. Our system tells us we are less valued as we get older.” Joni is passionate about the value older people bring to our society and she has been instru- mental in finding ways to bridge the gap between young and old. Joni has been a nurse for 40 years, but seven years ago she trained as a geriatric resource nurse for Lakeridge Health. She was asked to create an initiative to deal with the isolation, despair and loneliness that many elderly patients feel. So Joni put her heart and soul into finding a way to lessen what she calls a tragedy. MARCHFOCUS.32.indd 9 “We desperately need our elders, with their wisdom and their experi- ences. These proud people of our community in their latter years are silent and suffering, trying desperately to deal with all kinds of loss; loss of family and friends, loss of control over their bodies, loss of a sense of worth, loss of their dignity. We needed to find a way to restore their sense of value, life and beauty,” Joni explains. Five years ago Joni created a new program she calls “GIVE” (Geriatric Initiative of Volunteers for the Elderly). GIVE is comprised of a group of teens who participate on many different levels by creating relationships and interacting with geriatric patients. Joni’s original core group was six teenagers and she said that she designed an orientation program that would increase their understanding of what it was like to be elderly. She says of the beginning “The kids really had no conception of what it is these elderly patients were enduring on a daily basis; loss of hearing, eyesight, mobility, bladder loss, cognitive thinking, plus of course depression and isolation.” Orientation was matter of fact, so Joni sat her teenagers down, stuffed. their ears full of cotton, put glasses on them smeared with Vaseline and fed them as she talked to them. “Boy they did not like it one bit,” she said smiling. Slowly the teens learned that empathy and kindness are gifts for the elderly, and they found that their senior patients had just as much to give them as they were providing. Listening became their greatest ally in opening communication. As Joni’s teenage volunteers learned to listen it was through simple tasks that they found great re- ward. They learned to just simply be with the patients, just talking, writing a letter for them, playing cards, going for a walk, looking through pictures. Please turn to page 10... FOCUS - MARCH 2012 9 42-02-20. 10:40 AM