Aged care residents welcome back beloved volunteers

It’s been 18 months since Deborah Bayliss was last able to volunteer, and she was delighted to find that many of the residents remembered her.

“It’s lovely to come back and see their happy faces,” she said.

Ms Bayliss has been volunteering with Mercy Place Shepparton for five years, running exercise groups, the coffee club and manicure sessions. She has morning tea with the residents and goes and visits those who can’t get out of bed for a chat and a laugh.

The volunteers do their best to enrich the lives of the residents with activities like colouring in, going out in town, singing and exercising. Ms Bayliss said she was glad to be back and to see the smiles on the residents’ faces; but it was a bittersweet return.

“About eight of [the residents] I haven’t been able to see because they passed away. So that’s very sad,” she said.

But there have been new additions to the home too, and Ms Bayliss says they had been quick to accept the volunteers.

“They tell us about themselves and their stories and where they worked and where they grew up. So you get to know them quite quickly,” she said.

The staff and volunteers are doing their best to resume the entertainment the residents were used to before the COVID-19 pandemic. One of the most rewarding activities for the residents is visits from the kids from Shepparton’s Verney Road Kindergarten and the Goodstart Early Learning Centre on Archer St.

“There was a lady that comes in and plays the guitar ... they play with balloons, and we set up little colouring areas and the children will interact with the residents, which is really nice to see,” she said.

But all of that stopped during COVID-19 lockdowns and the mental health of some residents has suffered. Because of the pandemic, the residents have been isolated for almost two years.

Besides Ms Bayliss, there are only the Mellino brothers, Joe and Nazzareno, who have returned to the home as volunteers.

The two have been volunteering at the home ever since their mother began living there, and know what the residents have lost in their quality of life.

“We had singers, we had dancers, we had outings — but now all that kind of stuff is all gone,” Nazzareno said.

Melissa Screen, personal care assistant at Mercy Place, said when the home lost volunteers during the pandemic, many residents became sad and depressed.

“It was horrible. They don’t understand why, they just feel rejected and neglected and we couldn’t do anything about it because we can only do so much,” she said.

The three things the residents really engage with are music, children and animals, according to Ms Bayliss. There used to be a greyhound called Max that would visit.

“But we had to stop that because they were feeding him biscuits and everything and the poor greyhound was getting bigger and bigger,” she said.

“And he was running around into all their rooms, and he knew which rooms to go to to get fed well!”