Jim's Story: Banner Heart Hospital

Banner Volunteers Make For Excellent Patient Care: Jim's Story - Full Transcription

Text: Banner Volunteers Make For Excellent Patient Care

Image:  Jim Merritt, speaks on-camera

Text: Jim Merritt
Volunteer/Banner Heart Hospital 

Audio: “Volunteering I feel that I’m not wasting anything. I can’t do anything at home, I can’t do anything around the yard or in my community, but at the hospital I can help people. I can give them directions as to where to go, I can get them help when they need help. I can be of assistance in calming some of their fears and anxieties and give them – lift a little bit of the load off their shoulders, make them a little bit lighter, because they know what’s going on.

The place I like to be best is at the nurses station where I can – I feel that I’m more help there than anywhere else, because when patients call in the room, they push that little call button at their bedside and it rings a bell in the nurse’s station. I pick up the phone, I talk to them and I ask them what they want, how I can help them and then they tell me and I respond by paging either the nurse or the tech to go to their assistance.

The feeling that you get from the help that you give is incomparable; it’s something that you just simply can’t believe how you feel when you get home at night, what you have accomplished for the day. I can go to bed at night and I can say, ‘I helped somebody today. I’ve done my best.’ And you can’t have a better feeling than that.”

Text: Banner Health
Copyright 2010