Helping hands for the nursing staff: 67-year-old pensioner lends a hand in the Munich clinic
Created: 11/24/2022, 10:02 am
By: Katrin Woitsch
From room to room with the food trolley: Ilona Rank briefly removed the FFP2 mask for our photo.
© Marcus sleep
Ilona Rank is retired.
She spends part of her time in the hospital in Munich - to relieve nursing staff at work.
Munich – The food truck is fully loaded when Ilona Rank parks it in front of the nurses' station at Station 22.
Your shift has just started – just in time for dinner here at the urology department of the Munich Clinic in Bogenhausen.
But before she can distribute the trays, Rank has to ask the nursing staff whether there are any patients who have just had surgery who are not allowed to eat.
She goes through all the names with a nurse.
Before Rank starts pushing the food cart, she loads up some more bottles of water.
"It saves time," she says.
She learned long ago how to work effectively.
Although her shift lasts only three hours, her pedometer sometimes shows 10,000 in the evening.
"I can't imagine how many steps the nurses walked after an eight-hour shift," she says, and makes her way to the first patient room.
Bogenhausen: Munich Clinic is looking for helping hands to relieve the burden on nursing staff
Rank is 67, actually she could devote herself to her hobbies and enjoy her retirement.
Instead, she drives to the clinic three times a week, puts on the white work clothes and supports the nursing staff in their work.
She does everything for which no medical or nursing training is required.
Distributing food, changing beds, stocking up, disinfecting - sometimes she just sits by the bedside and listens when she realizes that a patient needs a little help.
Ilona Rank is one of the helping hands that the Munich Clinic is looking for to relieve the burden on nursing staff.
The project started three years ago.
"It was easy to find people who wanted to help in the hospital full-time or part-time," reports Barbara Stierstorfer, the project coordinator in Bogenhausen.
It was even easier during the Corona period, when jobs were lost in many sectors.
The pilot project has now become the permanent “100 Helping Hands” program.
The Munich Clinic is investing in 55 full-time positions at the five locations.
Since many helpers like Ilona Rank work part-time, there will soon be more than 100 service staff – as they are officially called – on duty.
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Seniors in particular have already registered, reports Stierstorfer.
But also some students or mothers who want to get back into working life with one of these mini-jobs.
Working hours are flexible.
"The helpers don't have to have nursing training," emphasizes Stierstorfer.
“A good mood is important, as is empathy.
They have to work independently and be able to set priorities.” The caregivers are relieved by the helpers – and have more time for caregiving activities.
Pensioners, students and mothers help out in the hospital
Ilona Rank enters the first patient room.
Two gentlemen smile at her, they already know her.
"I'll bring dinner," Rank calls happily and places the trays on the bedside tables.
“Would you like another water?” she asks one of the patients.
Things move fast in this room.
The two men can eat themselves, they have no special requests.
Sometimes Rank also has to cut up the food for the patients.
If they need to be fed, she has to get a nurse, she's not allowed to do that.
She brings the food and often gets a smile back from the patients: Ilona Rank is a waiter at the Bogenhausen Clinic.
With her commitment she relieves the nursing staff.
© Marcus sleep
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The two men in room 21 are not the only ones who give Ilona Rank a grateful smile that evening.
"Would you bring me a coffee with three lumps of sugar?" asks a patient who cannot get up.
Rank takes a moment before getting the second food cart.
"I don't want any credit for what I do here," she says.
"But it's nice that people see it." The gratitude is great, she says.
It comes from the nursing staff, but also from the patients.
"I feel like I'm doing something meaningful with this work," she says, picking up an empty yoghurt pot and a cup that a patient had left on a table in the hallway on the way to the nurses' station.
Mini job in Munich clinic: Pensioner also takes time for patients
Two weeks ago, Rank spent a long evening sitting by the bed of a woman who was very anxious, she says.
"I took some time for her." She listened, distracted - she didn't talk to the woman about the illness.
"I couldn't say anything about that." Sometimes it's just that little bit of support that we don't have time for in everyday care.
Ilona Rank's everyday life has changed because of her mini job.
Not just because she now often gets 10,000 steps a day.
"You get a different perspective on life - and on the value of health," she says as she collects the last of the food trays.
She feels that she is making good use of her free time here at the hospital.
Just before she goes home that day, a nurse calls out to her, "Thank you for being there!" Ilona Rank smiles.
She has never gone home without someone saying that sentence.
