Calvary Health Care Sydney provides both Palliative Care and Rehabilitation services within the hospital and community in the South Eastern Sydney Local Health District, NSW.

The Calvary Care for Carers program was set up around 2000 and has been operating three to four days a week pre Covid, providing massage to our palliative care patients who are being cared for at home, and to their carers. (we have a different service for patients in Calvary hospital).

Referrals for the service are made by the Community Palliative Care Team to the Mgr. Volunteer Service and appointment is scheduled.

When possible, we have two massage therapists scheduled at the same time so a massage can be offered both to the patient and their carer.  We are very aware of the level of stress and exhaustion experienced by our carers, so this service is so much appreciated.

We also extend this service to our staff as a way of supporting them. Often a massage therapist visits the wards on a scheduled day and time…. and provide a 15 minute neck and shoulder massage. If a staff member would benefit for a 45 min massage, we will schedule them in for a session. Often staff have issues with stressed muscles etc. or just the emotional toll of caring for our palliative care clients, where they can experience vicarious grief with many deaths within a week.

Process:

The Care for Carers service has a dedicated massage room in a cottage within the hospital grounds. Everything is supplied including massage oils, linen etc.

It usually operates from Tuesday – Friday with 45-minute sessions between 12 – 3pm, depending on the availability of the massage therapist.

Some therapists came in each week, whilst others were available for fortnightly or monthly sessions.

Other Possibilities for volunteer massage therapists:

We also welcome massage therapists who would be interested in volunteering in either: -

• The palliative care wards to offer limb massage etc. to our inpatients. This role could be of interest to people with minimal experience in massage.
• Assigned to visit a patient in their home each week for no more than an hour or so. We always aim to assign our Community volunteers within their own geographic areas where possible.

Requirements:

Massage therapists are part of the Calvary Volunteer Team.

All Calvary staff and volunteers working in health are required to have a Police Check, Immunisation compliance and complete online ELearning to prepare them for working safely in a health care environment.

There will be no out of pocket expense for meeting these compliances.

Calvary requires evidence from the massage therapist to validate their training and they need to be a member of one of the Massage Therapist Associations.

Calvary will provide a letter should the massage therapist need CPD points.

Should anyone of your members be interested in this opportunity, they are welcome to check out our website,

 

https://volunteerservice.calvary-sydney.org.au/    which will give them a good overview of the Calvary Service. If they wish to know more, they are welcome to contact me or complete the online application form on the website.

 

 

The MAA Board has approved 1 point per hour CPD/E as PPOS (Professional Practice and Other Supporting Education)

 

Email: annemarie.traynor@health.nsw.gov.au 

Web: https://volunteerservice.calvary-sydney.org.au/

Exp March 2025