Call for volunteers to help stroke charity

 If your fucking failure of a stroke association is calling for volunteers it means they are a complete failure in getting 100% recovery protocols created! You need to disband that and put survivors in charge.

Call for volunteers to help stroke charity

THE Stroke Association is calling for new volunteers in Dumfries and Galloway to come forward to help provide support to stroke survivors and their loved ones, as they navigate life after stroke.

The latest statistics across the region show 325 people had a stroke in 2023, with admissions across both Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary and Galloway Community Hospital.

The Stroke Association is particularly keen to hear from people who have had a stroke, or have supported someone who has, and want to use their experience to help others.

There are currently two Stroke Association volunteers in Dumfries and Galloway but the ambition is to recruit more to work in partnership with the health board to support stroke survivors and their families in appropriate settings.

One is Sheryl Herring, from Dumfries.

She was an energetic mother of two, working full time in health and social care, when her husband, Bruce, had a massive stroke aged 49.

He was hospitalised for 11 months and emerged wheelchair bound and suffering from severe bouts of depression.

Sheryl became her husband’s full-time carer, which changed the family’s entire dynamic and financial situation, and she started to feel the pressure. She had a breakdown and found the friends she used to rely on peeled away.

Sheryl says it was a constant battle to get Bruce the help he needed, so she started to research what support was available and discovered the Stroke Association and Dumfries & Galloway Carers Centre.

Sheryl is now a volunteer for the Stroke Association and a highly valued part of the stroke community locally.

She visits the stroke ward at the infirmary every Monday to tell patients and families about Stroke Association support and what is available in the local area.

Every two weeks she visits Lochmaben Community Rehabilitation Unit to help patients further into their recovery.

Sheryl has recently started a peer support group, which happens on the first Thursday of every month in the Cluden Unit at Mountainhall Treatment Centre in Dumfries.

She said: “It was a revelation to find people going through what I’d been through, and I get a lot of support from Stroke Association ‘Community Connectors’ whose job it is to signpost stroke survivors and their families to the services and support the charity provides.

“I feel my experience puts me in a very good position to provide a sympathetic ear and reassure people they are not alone.”