VOLUNTEERS IN OUTPATIENTS’ DEPARTMENT A volunteer who works in an outpatients’ department in a hospital sees every day hundreds or thousands of people pass by; they are often bewildered during their first access to the hospital or worried for the result of their physical examination or of their clinical tests. A volunteer must not only give thorough information to anybody who may ask him/her for it, he/she must also be a good observer and spot people who need a particular care. He/she tries to approach people who are clearly worried, talking to them so as to ease their mind, and volunteers to help restless people, reporting them to the health workers who will, if necessary, set up a “reserved lane” to shorten their waiting time.

Volunteers in children’s department have the essential task of entertaining children waiting to be examined by the doctors and of talking to their parents who are always extremely worried. The bureaucratisation of the hospital complex makes sometimes complicated and difficult the succession of the different steps that are to be taken to gain access to its various services, so much so that it is very difficult for some people to get to the end of it. A volunteer volunteers to help people to get through all formalities, to fill in forms, or suggests the procedure to follow  (priority numbers, counters  for the payment of the National Health Service charge etc.)