Pilot brings volunteers into elderly care at Gøta home

Kringvarp Føroya reports that volunteers will help with practical tasks at the nursing home in Gøta as part of a pilot project aimed at easing pressure on staff facing a growing shortage of workers in elderly care.

Volunteers will help prepare activities, spend time with residents and go on walks with them. The pilot is organised by Nánd, an elderly care cooperation.

“The plan is not for volunteers to take on care duties,” said Poula Reinert-Petersen, head of Nánd. She acknowledged that responsibilities could become blurred between volunteers and employees, adding that the pilot would have to be adjusted if that happened.

Reinert-Petersen said volunteers could provide valuable help while also gaining something themselves from working at the nursing home.

Asked why more employees were not being hired, she said there were simply no workers available. “If more people are to work in elderly care, they will be missing elsewhere. We therefore need to discuss what our welfare society should look like in the future,” she said.

Mary Antonsdóttir, chairwoman of the Faroese Association of Healthcare Assistants, was a guest in the television studio.