Celebrating Volunteers at Weldmar: How Elaine provides ‘an oasis of calm’ through aromatherapy massage for patients

Elaine Smith, from Weymouth, has been volunteering her services as a complementary therapist for more than 25 years. She is a friendly and familiar face at Weldmar Hospicecare’s Inpatient Unit, where she meets patients to offer them aromatherapy massage.

This is one of a range of treatments offered by the charity, which can help ease symptoms and pain as well as the anxiety and stress that can come with a life limiting illness.

Elaine returned to Dorset in 1999, and saw a newspaper advert asking for volunteers to join Cancer Care Dorset – a charity that provided end of life care for people at home and, in 2004, merged with the hospice in Dorchester, and Trimar Hospice in Weymouth, to become Weldmar Hospicecare.

Recognition for the difference complementary therapies can make

“One of the biggest changes I’ve seen over the years,” says Elaine, “is the acceptance of complementary therapy. It was quite a fight in the early days, but the current team at Weldmar is very good at promoting it, and knowing the benefits that it can bring.”

Those benefits, Elaine explains, can be significant for a patient: “Just recently, I provided a patient with a treatment, and was with Sarah (Weldmar’s Complementary Therapy Service Lead), when one of the health care assistants from the ward came along to tell Sarah that this man had just had his massage, and then was able to walk along to the Wellbeing room without feeling breathless at all. She couldn’t believe it.”

Giving patients moments of ‘sunlight’

Elaine says she can appreciate the difference that a therapy can bring: “It helps to provide those small moments of peace, of taking you away from your problems at that particular time. Here at the hospice, when people are going through their most difficult time, any sunlight that you can bring them is beneficial. They are going through their most difficult time, they would have had countless tests and scans during their illness, but this is a gentle, caring touch rather than a medical intervention. It’s just like holding their hand … with some nice smelling oils to go with it!

Since applying for that first voluntary position, Elaine says she’s felt supported and valued as a volunteer for Weldmar. Caroline Munslow, who is just about to retire as Volunteer Services Lead at Weldmar, was also just starting her role with Cancer Care Dorset around the same time, and Elaine says Caroline has been ‘instrumental’ in the development of volunteers over the years.

A sense of reward

Elaine also spent some time as a rep on the Volunteer Forum, raising concerns, asking questions, and putting forward suggestions directly to the senior leadership team on behalf of the hundreds of volunteers from across the charity. She says it’s ‘another good thing that Weldmar do’ for those people who give their time so kindly.

Elaine says she continues to enjoy her time as a Weldmar volunteer: “It’s a privilege to be there for people during their most difficult time of life, and that of their family. It’s like being a small cog in a big machine. Without the small cog, it just doesn’t work!”