{"id":184182,"date":"2022-04-13T16:59:16","date_gmt":"2022-04-13T20:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=184182"},"modified":"2022-04-13T09:54:54","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T13:54:54","slug":"uconn-healths-volunteers-glad-to-be-back-on-site","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2022\/04\/uconn-healths-volunteers-glad-to-be-back-on-site\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Health\u2019s Volunteers Glad to Be Back On-Site"},"content":{"rendered":"

Twenty-three of the volunteers who\u2019d been giving their time to help at UConn Health are back after a pandemic hiatus that kept them away for about a year.<\/p>\n

And UConn Health is glad to have them.<\/p>\n

“We have volunteers supporting various departments on campus including Guest Services, Occupational Health, Spiritual Services, and Molecular Biology & Biophysics,” says Lisa Detoma from the UConn Health Office of Patient Experience. “Our numbers are significantly lower because we have not opened many of our areas for volunteers to return due to our COVID-19 policies and restrictions.”<\/p>\n

Under these restrictions, the small army offers more than 90 hours of volunteer labor in a typical week, assisting with clerical tasks, pastoral services, wayfinding, appointment verification, transport, patient mail and other deliveries to the inpatient units.<\/p>\n

In March 2020, volunteers were asked to not come in at all while UConn Health was adjusting to life during COVID-19. Before that, the number of active volunteers exceeded 100.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Staff
Volunteer Joan Munroe (left) assists staff at UConn Health’s information desk in the main building. (Photo by Chris DeFrancesco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cFinally, a year later, in 2021, I got the email saying, \u2018Would you be interested in coming back in,\u2019 and I just about hurt myself typing that answer, \u2018Yes, yes, please let me come back in, yes,\u201d says Joan Munroe, who started volunteering at UConn Health in 2017. \u201cAnd I was in within a month. I really wanted to be part of the team again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Munroe lives in Wethersfield and is a retired software engineer from the private sector. She comes in about eight hours a week, primarily to help with wayfinding. Most Mondays and Thursdays you\u2019ll find her at or around the desk in the main building lobby.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though I\u2019m here for eight hours a week, I feel like I\u2019m actually making people\u2019s days a little bit easier and a little bit better,\u201d Munroe says. \u201cWhen somebody is going through a crisis, I\u2019m able to calm them down. If somebody\u2019s confused I\u2019m able to reduce their stress. So I really feel that somehow I\u2019m adding to someone\u2019s life when they\u2019re facing a situation of difficulty.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jay
Volunteer Jay Christian returns a wheelchair to the UConn Health main building lobby. (Photo by Chris DeFrancesco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Tuesdays you\u2019re likely to find Jay Christian in the same lobby. He retired after 32 years of service at UConn Health, his last 20 years in the role of managing curriculum rotations in the UConn School of Dental Medicine. He\u2019s been volunteering for about four years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe health center is a large part of my life; it\u2019s sort of like a second home to me,\u201d says Christian, who commutes from Harwinton. \u201cIt\u2019s very satisfying, because you\u2019re directly helping people, in wheelchairs, or walking with them, or showing them how to get someplace. I think people need a smiling face and a nice person to do this type of stuff because they\u2019re under a lot of stress just coming to a hospital, I think, a lot of times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meantime, on your way into the Outpatient Pavilion, you\u2019re likely to encounter Carol Staubley, another UConn Health retiree. She spent most of her 24 years of service working in the Graduate Medical Education Office, and started volunteering not long after she retired in 2014.<\/p>\n

\"Carol
Volunteer Carol Staubley does a temperature check upon entry screening at the UConn Health Outpatient Pavilion. (Photo by Chris DeFrancesco)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI love what I do. I love everyone here. I enjoy what I can do to help UConn and the patients and the doctors,\u201d Staubley says. \u201cI tell a lot of people, if they\u2019re interested in doing something, then come to UConn, because they\u2019re always looking for volunteers, and it\u2019s a great place to work, a great hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n

Staubley, of Plainville, comes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, helping with entry screening and wayfinding. Before the pandemic, another of her duties was to keep patients company in the Carole and Ray Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center, a role she hopes to reprise once pandemic restrictions ease.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love working with the doctors there, the patients and the staff,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re all great.\u201d<\/p>\n

UConn Health expects to start welcoming new volunteers and welcoming back previous ones who haven’t returned yet as pandemic conditions allow.<\/span><\/p>\n

“I want everyone, especially our volunteers, to know what a significant role they play within our institution and how much we appreciate their hard work and dedication,” Detoma says.<\/p>\n

UConn Health is not back to accepting new volunteer applicants yet, but when the time comes, the updated information will be available on the donors and volunteers page<\/a>. In the meantime, questions can go to detoma@uchc.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great place to work, and there are a lot of very nice people who are very appreciative of volunteers,\u201d Christian says. \u201cMore than once, people have said, \u2018It\u2019s good to see the volunteers back,\u2019 or, \u2018We really appreciate what you do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know for a fact, I\u2019ve heard it many times, the people at the front desk really value me, and they miss me when I don\u2019t come in,\u201d Munroe says. \u201cSo to me that means an enormous amount, that I\u2019m doing something that makes a difference and I\u2019m valued by the people I work with. So that is a huge reward for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

April 17-23 is National Volunteer Week.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They were volunteering at UConn Health, sat out for nearly a year during the pandemic, and came back. Three retirees share what motivates them to assist patients, visitors, and staff on their own time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":184183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-184182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-health"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-02 18:43:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184182"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184304,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184182\/revisions\/184304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/184183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184182"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=184182"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=184182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}