Arizona's Story: Banner Hospice

Text: Banner Volunteers Make For Excellent Patient Care

Image:  Arizona Barnhill, speaks on-camera

Image:  Arizona Barnhill
Volunteer/Banner Hospice 

Audio: “As a – as a hospice volunteer there are a number of activities I can be involved in but the primary activity I’m involved with is going into patient’s homes and providing respite for their – for their primary care givers or providing companionship or perhaps reading or writing letters of just conversation.

What I get out of being a volunteer is a chance to pay back the many hundreds and probably thousands of people that helped my friends and my relatives when I was unable to. I was in the military for 33 years, primarily overseas and I lot grandparents and parents and friends that I wasn’t able to personally help in – in their dying process. So after I retired I – I became interested in hospice and I started volunteering with Banner Hospice. I’ve been with Banner Hospice as long as I’ve been in the valley.

It’s a pleasure to know that – that you’re doing something that other volunteers have done for your parents or your friends when they were dying. And it’s very rewarding; you never leave your contact with a hospice patient without feeling that you have made a contribution.”

Text: Banner Health
Copyright 2010