Scoop: Volunteers guide older cancer patients at home

The trained volunteers visit every two weeks and also familiarize patients with the care offered.

Role play

Through role play, volunteers learn how to be a listening ear for people with cancer and how to show them the right path to care and welfare. The Waregem primary care zone with seven municipalities has been selected for this research project by Ghent University and VUB, which focuses on people over 70.

“That is a group that is often forgotten,” says international trainer Else Gien Statema (VUB/UGent). “They have different needs than younger people with cancer. Cancer is not always their first or biggest problem. Sometimes they already have other health problems that also play a role. Information processing has sometimes changed at that age. There are other needs that we hope to meet with this project to help provide an answer.”

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Meaningful retirement

The Palliative Care network and the hospitals in Kortrijk and Waregem are also partners. Volunteer Wendy Pycke from Avelgem is a nurse, but in her job there is no time to really talk: “My mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Breast cancer already runs in the family. I noticed that people do not dare to say certain things to their partner. They already feel that they are a burden on their partner and they don’t want to add the emotional element to that.”

Dirk was looking for a meaningful way to spend his retirement: “Especially in this day and age where many contacts have been digitized and where people have great difficulty accessing certain forms of services and assistance, I think that personal contacts with people still work best.”

There are many initiatives in the first-line zone, which it is up to the volunteers to make them known.

“I’m thinking, for example, of our swimming pool De Treffer in Waregem, where there are special swimming lessons for people with cancer, but that is not really known. There are also various support groups in the region where people can go,” says Niels Verhenne of Eerstelijnszone in the Waregem region.

The study is part of an international study in six European countries.