About the Friends of Dover County Hospital
Who Are We
The Friends of Dover County Hospital are a non-profit organisation which provides support to hospital staff and above all, to the hospital patients and their families with an aim to make their hospital stay as comfortable as possible. But we also run a variety of both inside and outside hospital programmes to promote healthy living and the importance of early disease detection. All our members are volunteers with a lot of compassion and understanding that is highly appreciated by the patients of the hospital and their loved ones.
What Do We Do
Our work can generally be divided into inside and outside hospital activities. Besides offering companionship to the patients and general information to the visitors, our volunteers also run a retail shop in the hospital and provide trolley service to the patients, organise various events in the children’s department to bring smiles to the faces of the youngest patients of Dover hospital and assist the hospital staff in clerical and administrative tasks. Our activities outside the hospitals include visiting home-bound patients, cleaning, haircare, housekeeping, providing transportation, organisation of disease prevention and awareness campaigns, running a charity and organising fund raising events because we exclusively depend on voluntary donations.
Prevention is the Best Medicine
Most health problems can be prevented with a healthy lifestyle and self-care measures. Besides offering support to those who have lost their health, the Friends of Dover County Hospital therefore also organise a variety of disease prevention and awareness campaigns. That way we hope to reach a wider population and make people understand that health must not be taken for granted and that it is difficult to restore it once it is gone. Our disease prevention and awareness campaigns are primarily based on emphasising the importance of healthy lifestyle and early disease detection by providing information about early symptoms of common diseases and disorders.
Becoming a Member of the Friends of Dover County Hospital
We welcome everyone who is willing to help make a difference in quality of health care for the patients of the hospital and the community as a whole. No prior experience in health care is required but it is most certainly appreciated. The only requirement we have is age of minimum 18 years and willingness to help those who need it the most – the ill and disadvantaged. All new members receive training before becoming volunteers.
Donations
All our members are exclusively volunteers who do not receive any payment for their work with the patients and the community nor ask to be paid for their contribution. But the Friends of Dover County Hospitals and Devon Air Ambulance Trust have expenses too, mainly for promotional campaigns and selling arts and crafts. We also do our best to refund our volunteers at least for the fuel they use to get to the hospital and back home. We therefore highly appreciate every donation we receive. But we are also happy to accept unwanted but still useful clothing, shoes, blankets, old toys and similar products to help less fortunate members of our community. All money donations are especially welcome by going to http://www.daat.org/donate/.