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megram - 55JunOttawa - Index

Volunteer Service
“Heart” of Hospital
Some volunteers on board for more than 40 years
By Iris Winston
Active Retirement
When the Riverside Hospital
— now officially the
Ottawa Hospital, Riverside
Campus — opened its doors in 1967,
its first group of volunteers was
already organized and ready to go.
Long-time volunteer Audrey Darling
was one of the founding members of
the volunteer association, on the job
even before the hospital opened.
“The first thing we did before the
hospital opened officially was to be
tour guides,” says the 88-year-old vol-
unteer, now in her 41st year with the
hospital’s volunteer corps. “We were
given separate directions so that we
could all go different ways, but we all
landed up outside a door that said
‘morgue.’ That’s one of my funny
memories. They changed the name
after a bit.”
“After the hospital opened, we
put in a lot of time and worked in various
services when the Riverside was
a full hospital,”she adds.“I have seen a
lot of changes over the years. When
the Riverside was built, everything
was in place to add two floors to the
seven that were finished.We could use
those extra floors now. We are still
short of beds. And at the time that it
was closed, the hospital had been
accredited the top of the list (of the
city’s hospitals). But I am delighted to
see the hospital is functioning the way
it is.”
The Riverside was one of the facilities
that the Harris Tories targeted for
closure in 2000. It has since become
part of the Ottawa Hospital and is
now an ambulatory (day) hospital.
Among the services offered are eye
surgery, physiotherapy, dialysis and a
women’s clinic.
Audrey, who started work in the
coffee shop as soon as the hospital
opened, is now the oldest cashier in
the gift shop. “I’m rather proud of
that,”she says.“Usually I balance,and if
I don’t, I blame the machine.”
June 2008 • 41 • Fifty-Five Plus Magazine
She has made many marks during
her extensive volunteer career at the
Riverside.She set up the teen program
and was among the first group of volunteers
to work in the Emergency
Room. (“That was very fulfilling and I
think we helped.We certainly made a
lot of beds.”) She was one of the first
presidents of the volunteer association,
updated the history of the hospital
(the original was written by Les
Atkinson) for the 25th and 30th
anniversaries and even founded a volunteer
dynasty. Her daughter, now a
nurse educator at the Ottawa Hospital
General campus, was part of the first
group of candy stripers at the
Riverside.
“Audrey is one of the first people
I turn to when I need information
about the hospital’s history,” says
Wendy Molnar, the current president
of the Riverside’s volunteer association.
A 10-year veteran of the group,
Wendy, like Audrey, is a long-time volunteer.
“I have been volunteering
most of my life,” Wendy says. “I like
people and I like to keep busy.”
That, it seems, is true of the majority
of the 210 members of the Riverside
campus volunteer association who
“supplement services rendered by the
hospital.” They work the information
desk, run the coffee shop and the gift
shop and help out in all the other
departments. From its beginning, volunteers
have been key in the smooth
functioning of the Riverside.