‘Mended Hearts’ Seeks Volunteers

Mended Hearts“We are back” Mended Hearts members are happy to return as volunteers making visits to cardiac patients at WellStar Cobb Hospital. We have received a very warm welcome by each department and look forward to working with all that need us. Mended Hearts was started more than 50 years ago and is a nationwide volunteer group visiting thousands of patients each year.

To become a Mended Hearts Volunteer, we must first have a history of having a heart procedure. This ensures to the patients that we understand and have gone through similar circumstance or that we understand because we have been a caregiver of a heart patient. To say it in a simple way we have walked in their shoes. Second, we must go through WellStar Cobb Hospital Volunteer Services program and be accepted as any other volunteer. Next, we have to be accepted by Mended Hearts. We must make at least three visits with an accredited Volunteer and be approved by the Mended Hearts Board.

The contact person we work with each day before visiting patients at WellStar Cobb Hospital is Marie Thomas-Stanley, RN, Cardiac Educator. Marie will give us the list of patients to visit that day. There are times when the nurses on the floor may ask us to visit additional patients who they know may need an encouraging word from a Mended Hearts Volunteer. Currently we visit on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. With just four accredited volunteers and two of them already volunteering other days of the week it sometimes makes it hard to cover the three days. As with all volunteer groups, we are always in need of additional volunteers. Should you know of someone who would be an excellent Mended Hearts Volunteer, please have them call Bill Holland at 770-846-4833.

Current WellStar Cobb Hospital Mended Hearts Volunteers are Jim Galluzo, Sig and Barbra Cohen and Bill Holland.

From the April 2015 issue of The Bright Side, Cobb County Georgia’s Newspaper covering Smyrna, Vinings, Mableton and Austell, GA.