By Rebecca Goldfine,Staff Writer

The need for hospice volunteers is increasing as more people seek care as they near the end of their lives.

To meet the demand for volunteers – people might play cards, run errands, or sit quietly and listen to a patient’s questions and fears – Androscoggin Home Care and Hospice is offering additional classes this spring to prepare people for the emotional role.

All volunteers, after being screened, are required to take a 27-hour course, which includes training in spirituality at the end of life, family dynamics, medical information, and listening and communications skills.

Classes will be offered in Paris, Lewiston and Wilton beginning April 4. They are free, but volunteers are asked to commit at least two to four hours of care a week for one year.

“Volunteers are all ages,” Nancy Greene, volunteer coordinator for Androscoggin Hospice said Wednesday. “They come from all walks in life, and they just give from their heart.” The philosophy of hospice is to provide “comfort care” for people who are no longer choosing curative treatment and who have six or fewer months to live, according to Andrea Leblanc, hospice director for Androscoggin Hospice. The care, provided by a team of physicians, nurses, home health aides, chaplains, social workers and volunteers, is covered by most insurance plans, as well as Medicaid and Medicare.

Hospice services have grown in this area by more than 200 percent since 2002. Partly, demand has increased following a national trend, although Maine still lags behind the rest of the nation in the numbers seeking hospice care. “I think that more people are becoming aware of the hospice philosophy as time goes by,” Leblanc said.

But also, in 2002, Androscoggin Health Care stepped up its hospice care, offering the service to those living in nursing care facilities as well as homebound patients. The agency also opened a 14-bed Hospice House, the first of its kind in Maine, in Auburn in 2005.

This has caused enrollment in the program to jump from 295 patients in 2002 to 880 patients in 2005. More than 300 volunteers now work with the program.

Hospice volunteers are matched with a patient based on shared interests or specialties, Greene said.

Jeanne Beliveau, 65, of Lewiston said she has been a hospice volunteer for more than two years. “There had been a loss in my life, and I thought that I had something to give to people who were going through similar experiences,” she said.

Patients’ needs vary. Sometimes they ask to be read to, sometimes they’ll agree to a manicure, and sometimes, they’ll ask volunteers to pray with them.

Beliveau, a retired Lewiston middle school teacher, said she has worked with 12 patients, sometimes for many months, sometimes for as brief as 20 minutes. One patient Beliveau only saw once before she died.

“She said, You know this is going to be my last home,’ and she got weepy,” Beliveau said, describing the 70-something woman. “I said, What’s going on in your mind?’ and she just wept, sobbed. I saw a rosary, and I asked her if she would like to pray.

“She held my hand like a drowning person would hold your hand,” Beliveau said.