Voluntary Activities Center
Basic information
Voluntary activities have been implemented in the General University Hospital in Prague since 2005. Voluntary activities have been practically in interpersonal relationships for a long time, and in the hospital environment they are an important part of psychosocial support for patients as they are specific in that time and energy dedicated to the other person, Disease and hospitalization are one of the options that allows the patient to move away from the difficult situation. Thus, the patient may come up with other ideas, talk, laugh, tell his life story to an empathetic listener, and thus mentally heal. The aim of volunteering in the hospital is therefore to make the patient more pleasant with a positive impact on his / her mental health. Volunteers do not substitute the role of professional staff, and they usually do not deal with the patient's family topics.
The most frequent activities are taken by university students in helping professions: medicine, health care, psychology, social work, or special education. But also women who care for the family and want to be out of home. However, people who like to engage in volunteering, despite their successful career, want to meet other values, experiences and experiences before offering them a job.
Voluntary activities can be irregular or one-off (music and singing, patient accompaniment, help in organizing various events, etc.). In particular, it is an activity that is long-term, regular and consists of going to specific clinics once a week or 1 x 14 days for 1-2 hours and spending time with patients talking, reading, playing games. The Center of Voluntary Activities cooperates with a number of workplaces of our hospital.
An important part of voluntary activities is Canistherapy. Visits of experienced Canisterapists with dogs at our hospital clinics are a pleasant distraction not only for patients who miss their pet pets while staying in a hospital. Canistherapy teams are warmly welcomed by all patients, both in group activities and in individual visits, where the dog spends a few minutes on the patient's bed and can thus make the best friend of the human.
The Voluntary Activities Center works with The Chaplain Service of the General University Hospital in Prague and thus broadens the range of its activities. Through this collaboration, they can focus not only on organizing one-off community events across the hospital, but also on promoting the important dimension of our patients' lives - spirituality.
They wrote about us
May 2019 - Magazine Křižovatka
Annual reports
– 2018