Hospital volunteer

"Candy striper" redirects here. For other uses, see Candy stripe.

Hospital volunteers also known as candy stripers work without regular pay in varieties of health care settings, usually under direct supervision of nurses. Most hospitals train and supervise volunteers through specialized non-profit organizations known as auxiliaries. Directors of auxiliaries are most often paid employees of the hospitals.

The term candy striper is derived from the fact that the red-and-white striped pinafores that female volunteers traditionally wore in the United States, because of their resemblances to candy canes. The term and its associated uniform are less frequently used in current clinical settings.

Another hospital volunteer organization was sponsored by the American Red Cross. The "Blue Teens" wore blue-and-white striped pinafores. The adult women were known as "Grey Ladies" and wore light grey uniforms.

In the United States, volunteers' services are of considerable importance to individual patients as well as the health care system in general. Some people volunteer during high school or college (or rarely at the middle school level), either out of curiosity about health-care professions or in order of satisfying mandatory community service requirements imposed by some schools. Still others volunteer at later stages in their life, particularly after retirement.

History

Candy Stripers originated as a high-school civics class project in East Orange, New Jersey, in 1944. The uniforms were sewn by the girls in the class from material provided by the teacher – a red-and-white-striped fabric known as "candy stripe". The students chose East Orange General Hospital as the home for their class project.

"Blue Teens" and "Grey Ladies" were also hospital volunteer organizations sponsored by the American Red Cross. Blue Teens, usually high school age students, wore blue and white striped uniforms. The Grey Ladies wore solid light grey uniforms. Red Cross pins and patches were also worn on the uniforms indicating completion of required Red Cross training.

Usually a hospital sponsored either Candy Striper or Blue Teen volunteers but not both.

Duties

Duties of hospital volunteers vary widely depending upon the facility. Volunteers may work in staff reception areas and gift shops; file and retrieve documents and mails; take out trash; clean; provide administrative backup; assist with research by doing the dishes and autoclaving; help visitors; visit with patients; or transport various small items like flowers, medical records, lab specimens, and drugs from unit to unit.

A few hospitals ask their volunteers to help out with janitorial duties, like cleaning beds. Other "advanced volunteers" include patient-care liaisons and volunteer orderlies. These volunteers must operate on the orders of a nurse or a physician and are given special training to permit them to work with patients. They are also more common in large hospitals, particularly university-affiliated hospitals and teaching hospitals, as they allow pre-medical students to gain experience in patient care while taking pressure off a busy care team.

Some hospitals manage their volunteers from a dispersal unit and assign them to tasks based on real-time labor demand, while other hospitals assign volunteers to a single unit for the duration of their service. Female volunteers traditionally wore pink-and-white jumpers, while male volunteers traditionally wore light-blue tunics or shirts over dark slacks. Today, male and female volunteers often wear a uniform shirt or a short-sleeved shirt with slacks. Some volunteers (particularly "advanced volunteers") will wear scrubs, but this is usually avoided so volunteers are not confused with medical personnel. All volunteers wear ID tags within the hospital and these will prominently indicate the volunteer's status and position.

See also

• Volunteering

External links

• Canadian Administrators of Volunteer Resources (CAVR)
• Association for Healthcare Volunteer Resource Professionals (AHVRP)