Piedmont Fayette Hospital (PFH) Auxiliary recently welcomed a group of Dogwood Forest residents as new volunteers. Dogwood Forest is a senior living facility that offers assisted living and Alzheimer’s care. These Dogwood Forest residents have volunteered to donate approximately four hours of their time each week to work with the admissions department of the hospital.

The Dogwood Forest volunteers build admission folders, discharge packets and physician packets for nursing services. Each patient that is admitted to the hospital is provided one of these admission folders that contains helpful information about their stay in the hospital. The physician packets and discharge packets are used in patient’s medical charts for every inpatient admitted to the hospital.

“Piedmont Fayette Hospital Auxiliary Volunteers are once again reaching beyond the walls of the hospital to form partnerships that benefit the patients and community,” said Darrell Cutts, president and CEO of Piedmont Fayette Hospital.
The Dogwood Forest volunteers assemble an average of 175 packets per week. Currently the volunteers are working on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Since the volunteers started in April, they have built an estimated 1,225 packets.

Piedmont Fayette Hospital Auxiliary member Liz Sargent is liaison to the Dogwood Forrest volunteer group. She has been the ambassador in organizing and implementing this program, training the volunteers and arranging the logistics of the project supplies.

Sargent has coordinated the support from nursing services, materials management, hospital courier services, hospital security and Dogwood Forest administration.

“One resident told me that she had worked for 30 years and was a hospital volunteer for 10 years and couldn’t wait to get started doing something useful again and contributing to the community,” Sargent said. “Another lady told me that this was the first time in many years that she had used her brain and felt useful.”

Currently, nine volunteers show up consistently twice a week and another three or four volunteers work when they are available. The Dogwood volunteers will have their hours logged and will be recognized for the number of hours they have donated to the hospital. There will also be an annual luncheon recognizing their efforts for the hospital, community and patients.

For more information about the Piedmont Fayette Auxiliary, please call 770-719-7098.

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