CALEB NICKERSON
Shawville June 27, 2019
On June 27, freinds and staff from the local Palliative Care Unit gathered in Shawville at the Centre D’Accueil Pontiac (CAP)’s Dale Thompson room for a celebration of volunteers, which turned out to be a surprise to the guest of honour.
Rick Valin, who coordinates the volunteers for the palliative care unit with his wife Carole, opened the event by stating that he hopes it will become a longstanding tradition.
“Welcome, to what I hope is the first of many annual events, to celebrate the critical people that do the work behind the scenes and make the Pontiac an incredible place to live, to work, to be,” he said. “Today we’re here to honour a number of very important people.”
He introduced Shirley Green, the founder and former volunteer coordinator of the palliative care unit at the Pontiac Community Hospital (PCH) as the “backbone” of their volunteer effort. Shirley passed the torch to the Valins recently, but has stayed on in an advisory role.
Rick also recognized a separate group of volunteers who, while not stepping foot in the hospital, contribute greatly to patient comfort: the group of ladies that knit shawls, blankets and other woollen items for the unit.
“They make our patients … so much more comfortable,” he said. “Our knitters do an incredible job and we want to honour them today.”
Green thanked the knitters for all they’ve done, and recalled when their stash of warm, knitted items outgrew the palliative ward.
“I do want to particularly remember the time we had so many shawls and blankets that we felt we needed to share it,” she said. “The knitters agreed, so we started sharing it with long-term care. It’s been so well received.”
She singled out Margaret Lang, as her “general in the field” when it came to the knitting group.
“She knew everybody that ever knitted in her life,” Green said, to a laugh from the audience. “She called them all and got them on board. Even some of her relatives across the river.”
Current coordinator of the knitting program, Em Morrison, read off a list of the volunteers in the group.
Next, Rick recognized the four new volunteers that would be joining their ranks in palliative care, having completed their training course this past spring.
The surprise of the celebration came when Green was blindsided by Carole presenting her with the Eugène Pigeon Award for 2019, recognizing her as an outstanding volunteer. Pigeon was also a long-time volunteer, who passed away in 2011 and the award was started in 2012 in his memory.
“The objective of the team, Shirley states, is to remove the fear of entering palliative care,” Carole said. “It’s not nice being pushed through those double doors and we need to create a peacefulness that does not exist on the main floor. We have a poster in our department that states, ‘We cannot add days to their lives but we can add life to their last days.’” Green then went on to present the 2018 Eugène Pigeon Award to the family of Joan Dunn, a long-time volunteer that passed away suddenly earlier this year.
She noted that Dunn was in the first class of palliative care volunteers to graduate, along with Pigeon, and praised her honesty an well as her detailed notes.
Dunn’s widower, Greg, accepted the award, and gave a heart-wrenching testimony about how Joan had readied him and his daughter for dealing with her final days.
“True to Joan’s core belief, she made sure that Jennifer and I were very well prepared,” he said. “The training she had in this institution, the experiences she had in this institution, paid tremendous dividends to ease our pathway in palliative care. For that I am truly thankful for all that you do. What you do here and in other places, is a godsend and a blessing. Thank you very much.”
