Hospital auxiliary volunteers needed

Shirley Morgan, president of the Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital auxiliary, describes her service to the auxiliary as a “circle of life”, volunteerism supports the hospital staff, which in turn helps members of this community.

However, volunteerism at the hospital auxiliary has been declining so much that Morgan has trouble staffing the hospital gift shop. The auxiliary has about 32 members, but as Morgan says, “Most of us are older,” and participation includes baking sweets for the monthly bake sale and not much else. “If we don’t have the doors [to the gift shop] open, we can’t sell,” she said. “It’s in the emergency stage.”

Morgan continued, “If we don’t make money, we don’t have money to give away.” In a small community like Thermopolis, and a small hospital like HSCMH, money raised by the auxiliary goes a long way.

The group, with little funding other than the gift shop and bake sales, has managed to use a formerly empty space in the hospital to build and furnish a family meeting room, featuring a television, DVDs, an Xbox, books and comfortable couches and chairs for family members of patients to decompress and shed some of the stress that accompanies the illness of a loved one. The room is also used as a small meeting room in which doctors can talk to the family of a patient without the patient present.

The family room was such a success that the Wyoming Hospital Association awarded HSCMH the 2010 Outstanding Auxiliary Award. The plaque hangs proudly on the wall outside the humble gift shop that afforded the funds necessary to build the room.

On the other end of the hospital, the auxiliary has completed another makeover; this time an ambulatory room that is similar in appearance, although larger, than the family room. The auxiliary paid for a number of chairs to be reupholstered, and has included a television and various other amenities into this room as well.

“Unless you volunteer, you can’t understand the benefits,” Morgan said. “It’s very rewarding.”

It is not only rewarding for the volunteers themselves and the families of patients in the hospitals, but also the staff itself. One program of which Morgan is particularly proud helps pay for community members to return to school to become registered nurses. The nurses will then work for HSCMH, completing the “circle of life” Morgan believes is so crucial.

If you would like to become a volunteer at the hospital auxiliary, make sure to stop by the group’s monthly meetings. Times and locations are featured monthly in the Community Calendar in the IR. No experience is required to become a volunteer.