“The people here listen to you. They really do listen to you.”
Pushing the wheelchair was Taylor Young. Listening is perhaps the most important part of the volunteer service he provides — and the most rewarding.
The patients don’t say much: they talk about their pets, their children, their pasts.
“Most people want to talk and want to hear stories or tell stories,” Young said.
Young, 17, is a senior at Hamilton High School. He is also one of the hospital’s nearly 20 junior volunteers.
The volunteers deliver flowers and mail for patients, transport equipment, assemble folders — all little things that keep the hospital running. Sometimes the little things are the most important.
“You can just kind of smile and make their day a little bit better,” Young said of dealing with patients.
A big part of their job is wheeling patients who are checking out to their cars.
“They’re the last face of Fort Hamilton Hospital people see before going home,” said hospital spokeswoman Marielou Vierling.
And that’s what Redden was doing: going home.
“As long as he don’t bump me going out this door, he’s very good,” Redden joked, appraising Young’s performance as he approached the hospital’s exit.
And sure enough, Young helped him get through without a problem.
Wigging out and touching noses
The room is little more than an oversized closet hidden on the third floor of Fort Hamilton Hospital. It’s actually the wig room, where dozens of multi-color hairpieces sit on faceless heads, staring down.
That’s where junior volunteers wait for the phone to ring.
“It’s a good place to wig out,” one of them joked.
They are no longer called candy stripers and a big part of what they do is interjecting youth, levity and cheer into what is, for many, a very uncomfortable situation.
“You have to sort of have a cheerful attitude and raise their spirits,” said Rosemary Mignery, 16, who goes to Badin High School.
When the phone does ring, they all rush to touch their noses.
“The last one (to touch their nose) has to go out,” explained fellow volunteer Taylor Young, 17, of Hamilton High School.
Depending on what it is, they don’t really mind going out. “No one really wants to take the bedside commode down to be washed out,” Taylor explains.
But some calls are more joyful: The new mother, for example, with a tiny baby in her lap whose father is loaded down with flowers, presents and luggage.
“I see everyone, the good and the bad,” Mignery said.
When they’re not transporting patients or commodes, the high-schoolers stay busy assembling folders, moving equipment — anything, really, that’s asked of them.
“They travel really well, and they’re down for just about anything,” said volunteer coordinator Mollie Young (no relation to Taylor). “They’ll go to any department and park themselves and do whatever is required.”
Because they’re not paid, they have fun, though that can be a challenge in a hospital at times. “You think wheelchairs look fun, but after a couple hours they’re not all they’re cracked up to be,” Taylor Young said.
Like Young and Mignery, fellow volunteers Jimin Seo, 17, of Badin and Ross High School senior Josh Mabis, 18, said they originally volunteered because they wanted to learn more about working in hospitals.
“I thought I wanted to be involved in the medical area, and it was a good way to learn leadership skills and people skills,” Mignery said.
And it looks good on a college application, they said. But it’s about more than learning.
“I’ve always liked the idea of — I know it sounds cliché — but helping people,” Taylor Young said.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2175 or jsweigart@coxohio.com.
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