WESTERVILLE, Ohio — Ginger Ward in Westerville is going through a box of old family photos. She pulls out high school portraits of her mother and sets them aside.
“My mom is one of five,” she explained. “She was a nurse, very hard working.”
As someone who provided care for others her whole life, she now needs care of her own.
Ward is a mother and grandmother. She is also now the caretaker for her mother, who is in hospice care.
“Very hard to see her how she is,” she said. “It's a hard time.”
Ward said for four hours a week a hospice volunteer comes by to spend time with her mother. It’s time she uses to leave the house to run errands.
“I feel very confident when I leave that my mom’s in good hands,” she said. “I don’t worry.”
The volunteer named Denise provides relief, support, and companionship.
“Just coming in takes that little pressure off of what you go through day to day because it’s very tough day to day to watch someone that you love just slip away,” Ward explained. “There’s nothing you can do.”
Right now there is a critical need for more hospice volunteers.
Daniel Riquino, the volunteer coordinator for Mount Carmel’s Hospice and Palliative Care, said in the pandemic the number of volunteers has dropped by 80%.
“We have a census of hundreds of patients and I have a couple of dozen volunteers right now,” he said. “And I have a huge list of patients who could use a volunteer."
A volunteer who can mean so much to mothers caring for their mothers, like Ginger Ward.
“There's days where I'm like, 'can I make it through another day?' And then I go I have to make it through another day because the days are getting shorter,” Ward said.
Even though their time together is short, Ward and her mother are not in this alone.
"This is why having my hospice team or I call my hospice family, is so important to me."
To learn more or fill out an application to become a hospice volunteer visit Mount Carmel’s website.
