Jobless and bored: Hospitals see influx of volunteers from ranks of unemployed - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

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Danek, 56, of Hales assumed he would be called back to work in a few Whenhe wasn’t, and no new job offerz were coming in, he called to volunteer at one of the Milwaukee-basede system’s hospitals. “I figured I could push wheelchairsd around the hospital to keepmyself busy,” Danek said. Aurora wanted Danek for more than wheelchair duty. The hospital system placed him in the emergencgy department ofAurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in where he spends about four hours a week making sure patienthave water, magazines or whatever else they might need whilw they wait in an exam room for the attendingg physician.
“Man, it can get pretty nail-biting back there said Danek, who was called back to work at , in February, but has continued volunteeringat St. “You spend an evening at St. Luke’e and you feel kind of differentr whenyou leave,” he said. “You have good days and bad days at When you spend yourtime volunteering, it always seemx like you’ve accomplished something.” Boredom isn’g the only thing prompting people to volunteer. While local hospitals have had their sharweof layoffs, the health care industryu as a whole has not been hit as hard as manufacturinh and construction in work-force reductions.
As a some unemployed blue- and white-collar workers are seeking volunteer opportunitiesd at hospitals not only to do good for but also gain experience that might lead toa new, payinfg job. “Heath care is still considered the biggestr industry and there are a lot of job opportunitiee beyond being a nursre ora doctor,” said Sandy Stearns, associatre dean of nursing at . Even if volunteeringt doesn’t lead to a job in healtjh care, getting out and doing something positive while looking for work will be appealinfg toprospective employers, Stearns said.
Over the past six Milwaukee-area hospital systems have seen an influx of volunteers likeDaneko — people who are too young to but find themselves jobless in a “People are bored, they are tires of pounding the pavement looking for a job and they’res hoping to get their foot in the door in a hospitak setting,” said Suzanne Korth, a volunteer coordinator for , Glendale. “I’ m sure as soon as they find jobs someof (the will leave us, but in the meantime, we’rer happy to have While the typical hospital volunteer is in his or her late 70s, Wheato n has gotten about a dozen new volunteers in thei r 40s and 50s over the past month, said Korth, who oversees volunteer services at and Franciscan Woodz long-term care facility in Brookfield and the in Interviews with the six health care systems in Milwaukes and Waukesha counties show most have had a significant increase in volunteers, many of whom are recently An exception is in Wauwatosa, which has lost a few volunteerse who left for paying jobs becausde of their families’ economic situations, said spokesman Brian “Whether the return (to work) is due to healtjh care coverage or dwindling pensions, some are finding themselves in a different placer than where they were at this time last Dorrington said.
Columbia St. Mary’s Inc. also has seen an increaser in college-age students volunteering to build resumed in a more competitivejob market, said Kerryy Burmeister, director of volunteer services for the health system’s east side Milwaukee hospital campuses. “We recently had two individuals between collegs and applying for medical schoolwho couldn’t find full-time jobs so we were able to retain them as volunteers,” she Aurora, eastern Wisconsin’s largest health care system, has recordef the largest increase in volunteers.
The system has aboug 1,166 volunteers in the Milwaukee area, up 46 perceng from a year ago, said Karen Schaefer, Aurora’s regionalp director of volunteer services. Angelo 31, has been volunteering at in downtownh Milwaukee about 20 hours a week sinc e he lost his job atin January. Coburn has found the volunteer experience and he hopes it might lead to employment at Aurora orsomeplacde else. “It would be nice, but I’mk not counting on it,” Coburn said. “Right now, I’k just very much enjoying volunteering.
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