The Decibel - The volunteers filling the gaps in Canada’s health care

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

Amidst the news about Canada’s strained and struggling healthcare system, there is a bright spot. The Globe and Mail published a series recently about volunteers filling in the gaps, called Care Between the Lines – about the volunteers who take a patient-first approach in a system that can often be isolating.Today, we’re bringing you a few of those stories of the volunteers getting rural Canadians to medical appointments, helping families in a pediatric hospital and getting seniors out for a bike ride.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We've talked a lot about Canada's strained health care system. But amidst the difficulties, there are also bright spots. Across the country, volunteers are an important part of today's health care. They help out in hospitals and long-term care settings. And they also do things like take patients to their appointments or bring seniors out to enjoy fresh air. These people who donate their time were the focus of a globe series. It's called Care Between the Lines.

So today, we're going to look at the impact these volunteers are having. We'll start by talking to Caroline Alfonso. She's the Globe's Health Editor, and she'll tell us about how these volunteers are filling gaps in the system. Then we'll head across the country and hear stories about how volunteers are making a huge difference in the lives of others. I'm Manika Ram and Wilms, and this is the Decibel from the Globe and Mail. Caroline, thank you so much for being here. I'm so happy to be here. I really loved working on this series, so I'm so I'm so glad you're featuring it. Well, I want to hear about the series and kind of the behind

the scenes part of this series. Tell us about how this came together. So Christy Kirkup, who's a health reporter at the Globe, had done a story in December on volunteer cuddlers at St. Mike's Hospital. These are retirees and volunteers who go in and cuddle babies in the NICU. And it was such a heartwarming story. And these are people who are doing it because parents need some rest or there's appointments. They have other children that they need to take care of. So that's sort of what sparked the series. Who are these volunteers? It's also quite a bleak news cycle, as you know. And we really wanted to give the reader something uplifting, something inspiring, and this is what these volunteers are in the health sector. Yeah. So you mentioned this one example of

the volunteer cuddling babies in the NICU is. Is this kind of typical of the people you're profiling here? Like what kind of things are these people doing? Oh, it was so inspiring, Medica, to read these stories and to tell these stories of these volunteers because they're not providing sort of the medical care. They're providing the social care. They're providing the emotional support. They're providing the wellness that people need who are attending, who are in hospitals

or in other healthcare facilities. And we told stories of volunteers in all fascinating. of the health care sector. So we had volunteers in Charlottetown who do the hair of patients, who like wash their hair and give them a hairstyle at a hospital. We had volunteers in pediatric hospitals who are entertaining children who are coming in because being in a hospital, being there for an appointment is quite scary, particularly for little kids and quite isolating. So we We just profiled a whole facet of volunteers doing some incredible work in the hospital system, but filling those emotional and social gaps that are so needed in wellness.

I imagine it's maybe hard to quantify this kind of thing, but do we know what kind of impact these volunteers are having on the system as a whole? We do have some idea of that. So there was a 2024 study that looked at 31 Toronto Area Hospital. So these are GTA hospitals. And what they found was that for every dollar that was invested in volunteer infrastructure, it translated to a return of $6.84 in value. That sounds pretty good.

Yep. It is pretty good. I mean, when we look at volunteering in healthcare, we have to remember that volunteer rates are down, not only in healthcare, but in all areas. And that's particular after COVID. There's many issues at play here. It could be sort of the current economic climate that we're dealing.

with. That's why we're seeing this dip. But keep in mind that despite this drop, we're still seeing people volunteer in the health care system. And Canadians in total spent 35 million hours giving time to hospitals in 2023. And when you think about it, that's particularly good for hospitals that are cash strapped and don't have those human resources that they need to sit with a patient for long hours. This is where the volunteers come in. We talked about a few different scenarios of volunteering a little bit earlier here, Caroline. But I guess I want to know, like from you in particular, are there any stories that you came across in this reporting that really stood out to you? There were a couple of stories. There was one of this woman in the prairies

who sat with dying patients who did not have family or friends nearby and how she sat with them in the last moments. But there was this one story that really, I mean, when you read it, you just, It breaks your heart. So Elena Smith profiled a volunteer at Edmonton's Cross Cancer Institute. And she spends hours painting radiotherapy masks for pediatric cancer patients. She designs them. These are beautiful, intricate masks. And Elena spoke to a mom who lost her son to cancer.

Marilyn designed two masks for him to model his favorite hockey players. One of them was Connor McDavid. And the mom told Alana that she keeps his mask because it is a way that she can still touch his face. So to think that this volunteer, through her beautiful work and through her hours spent designing this mask, has sort of kept a piece of him alive for her mom. It's just so lovely and so touching. That's amazing. Wow. I mean, what you're describing here, Caroline, this disdisperson.

really shows us how important these roles are for people in their times of need, right? So today in our episode, we're going to head to different parts of the country where our reporters and even one of our producers, they spoke to different volunteers and we're going to hear their stories. That's lovely. I love that. Caroline, thank you for doing this. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. In rural or remote parts of Canada, it can be hard to get to medical appointments. It can often mean a several-hour drive if you have a car. But what if you don't have a car? In 20, In 2017, Saskatchewan's provincial government shut down the Saskatchewan Transportation Company. It had provided public transportation to rural communities like Gravelberg.

Gravelberg is a town of around a thousand people, a two-hour drive southwest of Regina. Some of the town's residents were worried about people being able to make it to their appointments now that the transportation company was gone. So they decided to start up the Gravelberg Cares shuttle service. My name is Al Sutherland with the Gravelberg Care Shuttle at 756. I'm just waiting for my first customer at HB Gas in Gravelberg, Saskatchewan. So my first client is here. Jerry's here. We're going to be picking up the other two.

And off we go to Regina and Moostra and Mossbank. There's everywhere else. That's right. I've been everywhere, man. man. So my name is Al Sutherland and I live in Gravelberg, Saskatchewan and I'm one of the directors and the chair of Gravelberg Cares Shuttle, which is a medical transportation service in rural Saskatchewan. You know, this is something that Gravelberg needs. We need an ability to get medical treatment outside of town when specialist care especially is needed. At primary care, we're okay. We've got

physicians here but you know secondary tertiary care that happens in regina moos jaw swift current and saskatoon for our area so we get those people to those appointments good excellent good morning good morning how are you good thank you so can you tell me jerry what got you started with growlerberg shuttle like when did you start taking rights from the It would be in January of 2025 and the reason was I'm a bachelor and I have no family here. They're all in Regina and then I had to start appointments because I had open heart surgery, a stroke and seizures and all that. So I had several appointments and I heard, I knew about Grauberg shuttle.

So I said, well, try and book in. And that's basically how I started and it's been a lifesaver for me. Yeah. Because I don't have family here. Right. And I can't drive because the license was suspended. Our demographics and the life story of many people in rural Saskatchewan is that while they grew up in Saskatchewan, they stayed here, they had a family, their kids often left town for work or school and haven't returned to the rural community. And so that family support,

is not there to the degree it used to be. Another reason that we are required is new Canadians. Immigration has increased in rural Saskatchewan. And those people don't come to Canada with a driver's license and vehicle usually, and the connections to friends and family. So when they need a ride somewhere and can't drive, there's no public transportation, there has to be something to fill in the gap. I'm using shuttle probably two months, three times two weeks, because I have physiotherapy,

and it's very good because I didn't drive. I only have learning drivers lessons, and it's good because I doesn't need to ask my friends or my boyfriend leave work and drive me from my appointments. Wasn't it completely obvious to me in the beginning the impact that I was having? until you start to hear some of the stories from some of the people. Like I had a lady who told me that she had to go for a PET scan because she had cancer. There's only one PET scan machine in Saskatchewan, and that's in Saskatoon. So she had to get herself to Saskatoon.

She doesn't like city driving. She doesn't feel comfortable with technology. She drove herself to the appointment. she ended up getting lost on the way in Saskatoon, ended up missing her appointment, having to drive back three and a half hours, having to reschedule the appointment. And this isn't for a slight,

this isn't for an ingrown toenail, this is for cancer. So in the meantime, she found out about us. And, you know, it just jelled when she told me that story, this is why I'm doing this. You know, this is the impact that I'm having on this lady and more broadly for the whole community. It's a lifeline, that's all it is.

If I didn't have Grauber's Settle, what would I do? I'd have to move to Mooseja, basically. Yeah. And I'm not a city person, so. We're preserving life in the rural communities. People can stay in their own home longer. It's not that they're going to be able to stay there forever, because nothing in life is forever.

But like one of my passengers said, it's going to get me, you know, 10, 15 years more of being where I like to be in my own home with my cats, with my garden, with, you know, all the activities that I like and my friends and that sort of thing. No, it's a life saver. That's all there is to it.

That's just the way it is. So now it's the end of the day and it's 522. I've dropped off my last client. And the only thing left to do really is to fuel up the vehicle, take it to the car wash and wash it out. It's Friday. So on Monday morning... We'll be right back.

There's a story at Toronto's Sick Kids Hospital about how one night in 1949, the former chief of pediatrics, Dr. Andrew Lorry Schute, turned to his wife, Dr. Helen Reed Shoot, and asked her for help with a problem. They needed to raise money for a library. He suggested that she'd get a group of women together to raise funds for a medical library at the hospital.

She assembled a group of doctors' wives. Together, they surpassed their fundraising goal of 2,000, for a medical library. From there, the Women's Exilary Volunteers at Sick Kids was born. 76 years we've been here. That's Lydia Canning, the group's president. I have been with women's auxiliary at sick kids for 42 years. Doctors and nurses provide medical care,

but the women's auxiliary volunteers do other things in the hospital. About 220 members currently volunteer. They continue to raise money, And in the last three decades, the organization has raised more than $23 million for the hospital. These volunteers also run the playroom, keeping siblings of patients occupied. They run a gift shop, which donates all proceeds to the hospital, a sewing room, where they make things like surgeon's caps and baby blankets. And there's the surgical waiting room, where Lydia usually volunteers.

That's where she took us. We are on the second floor of the A. Treatment's Kids, and this is the floor that has all the surgery units on it, the recovery room, the pre-op room, and the critical care unit just down here. We get involved from the moment that the child goes into the operating room, the parents come down and register with us, and then when the surgeon comes to talk to them to report on the surgery after, They are completed. We make sure that the family is here. And once the surgeon has seen them and they are sitting in our room with us, soon as we get indication that they may come in to see their child, we escort them right down to the recovery room.

If it is a critical care patient, we escort them for their first visit into the critical care unit. We are here about 7.30 in the morning to get the room ready, to get the lists and everything. thing up to get the computers running, get the lists. We have two shifts. So the first shift finishes at 1230, and then the next shift takes over at 1230. And they typically stay until most of the surgeries are done and the parents are in the recovery room or they're waiting here or else we've told the nurse that the parents are in here. So you do not normally get out before

5.30 or 6. This is Yvonne. She is one of our volunteers here and she is also on the board as membership chair. The surgical waiting room team is amazing. How many people are on the team? There's about 32 altogether. Each day has about eight, eight people. Because you need two in the morning and two in the afternoon

and you need them. So you really have to have a good amount of people. And it's five-hour shift. So some people do come in a lot more. often than others. We do, but we don't mind that. And then some of us, I do like either the 7.30 shift or the 1230 shift, but there are a few other people that only want to do the 730 and only do the 1230. It's very funny.

Interview, but it just gives them a really good idea what to expect. You have to get that. Yes. That's recovery. Okay. That's the recovery room asking for you. Thanks, sir. You need to take somebody into recovery room.

Are you going to be able to leave? There's nobody here. Do you want me to stay? Okay. I just going to recovery. We can't have no one there. I might have to pop in. I joined in 1984 and I came because I wanted to give back to the hospital. I was a patient here and I really wanted to give back for the fact that they did save my life and also for the fact that there were people that came up to my room and made it pleasant for me to be there or as pleasant as possible.

by giving me crafts to do and having things to do to spend my time, because back then your parents could only come in for one hour twice a week. The trauma of the time is not something I remember anymore. What I remember are the women coming up with crafts for me to do. And so I vowed that I would like to pay back, but not so much the medical side. and I've been thinking about this, not so much the medical side, but the extra. With women's auxiliary, we claim we give an extra dimension of care.

And so that's what I wanted to do. And so when my youngest child went to school full days, grade one, I came down and volunteered to volunteer here. And I've been here, as I say, since 1984. When I was an impatient here, my four-year-old brother and 10-year-old son, sister had to sit in the rotunda all by themselves while my parents came up for their one-hour visit. Now we have a play park here that we established 52 years ago upon the request of the hospital. They wanted us to set up an area for the siblings of inpatients and for clinic patients in between appointments. It is such a needed facility because it gives the parents the time

they may need to go and hear a diagnosis or a protocol for care or just to spend time with their child that is on a unit. I remember one mom, she just did not look that comfortable. So I went downstairs and bought a muffin and some orange juice. And I took her out on University Avenue. We sat on the wall there, the... the brick wall, and I sat with her while she ate this, and we went back upstairs into the rotunda. A number of years later, she saw me in the hall, and she said, you were the one that

helped me that day. You looked after me. And that really sticks with me that you don't realize what you've done or the impact you've had on anybody. A little thing like just giving her a muffin and a glass of orange juice. And she remembered that. We just don't realize the impact we have or that we make. Who would have thought? Just like with me when I was here at seven years old,

who would have thought that, why would that volunteer that came in to give me a craft, remember that, oh, I'm not going to say how many years later, I still remember making that Bugs Bunny. You know, you just don't remember the, you don't realize the impact you have by just those little things. To finish, we move across the country to meet Jake Wynn.

Hi, I'm Jake Wynn. I'm the executive director of Vancouver Cycling Without Age Society. Vancouver Cycling Without Age Society is a volunteer-powered organization that provides recreational tri-shall rides to seniors across the city of Vancouver. More than 200,000 Canadians live in long-term care homes, where they get around-the-clock medical care. These facilities do offer recreational programming for their residents, but many seniors live in isolation, and it can be difficult for them to get outside. And that's where cycling without age comes in. As Jake describes it,

their mission is about spreading senior joy and providing them with a chance to feel the wind in their hair. We joined a cycling without age ride, on their way to Vancouver's Stanley Park. They were taking residents of Harrow Park Center out in their very distinctive-looking tri-shaws. A tri-shaw is a three-wheeled bicycle. We kind of call it a couch on wheels.

It's a cushioned, accessible two-person seat on the front of a bicycle. In the back is your standard handlebars seat for the pilot and a hub and battery that kind of, to provide some E-assist boost because cycling two people around for an hour is quite a workout. We've grown exponentially over the last few years as an organization, and really we've grown because the demands there. We can't provide enough rides. We currently have 11 tri-shaws. We have approximately 80 active volunteers who provide rides on a weekly basis. And we're

we provide rides seven days a week, morning and afternoon. In the months of July, we provided rides for nearly 750 seniors. So the way that Vancouver Cycling Without Ages programs work. We have community rides, which are rides that are open to the public. And we do those every weekend. Our other core program, which is about 80 to 85% of our rides, are our partner rides. And those are where we partner with care homes, senior serving organizations around the city, and we provide weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly rides to their clients.

We have a lot of volunteers who wind up signing up for the same shifts every single week because they build relationships. So on one bike we had our lead pilot, Robert, who was providing a ride for Alan, who is a staff member at Harrow Park. who accompanies residents on the ride, and he was riding with Alonso. So tell us the story, Alonzo. Yes, Alonzo? I used to live here, around the corner over there. Oh, did you?

Oh, nice. And Alonzo, what's your nationality? Chile. Chile? Have you been to Chile? Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. You've been as well?

Yes. I love Chile. Which part of Chile? The experience of going on a ride is incredible. It is, there's a transformational moment for every single person, young and old. This sense of freedom, the attention, everyone that you pass, waving, saying hello, saying good morning, good afternoon. That looks like fun, the ability to just sit back and have a conversation. Oh, okay.

My favorite town in Chile was Puerto Natales. Oh, that is in the south. In the south, yeah. Because I went to, I went hiking for a week in Torres del Pined. The simple act of a bike ride is also a very simple and effective way to have real impact on the health and well-being of seniors. And we see this all the time anecdotally in the feedback that we get from care homes coming back year after year. wanting to continue these rides from the positive impact that those staff are sharing about how their clients act after a ride, sleeping better, eating more, being socially engaged. I believe this last

year 2025, we had a rate of about 65% of our partners identified increase in cognitive function following rides. These are observations that are being had by care homes. The across the city. I love when people first move here and their first like bald eagles, I think. Which it never gets old. I still love it. But it's just like, oh my God. You're like, yeah, you're going to see how much. I think that we are indirectly hitting on this negative cultural narrative that we have

in Canada and North American general around aging. We're all afraid to do it. And we have a very agist society where we. don't want to age. We never want to get old. We don't think about it. And so we're really hoping that by making sure that seniors stay a part of the community, we as a community embrace aging as a part of everyone's life that should not be a moment where you go into long-term care and then what love, joy, adventure, connection, those are all just over. Like we just accept that that's no more. And I think we have an amazing group of volunteers who refuse to accept that.

We get to go inside the park. Yeah. My cat, you're a blue. Okay. Yeah. And the moment we share that with people, there's just this excitement because it's this massive, beautiful rainforest.

And the idea that somehow this tri-shaw can carry people on gravel trails through the forest, past trees that are hundreds of years old, past salmon berries that we can pick right there while staying seated, it's this magical. kind of experience, and if you've ever heard of that term of forest bathing, it couldn't be more accurate. We're going about five or six kilometers an hour. You hear that gravel rolling on the bike tires, and just for that time, there's not a worry in the world. Oftentimes, the things that we see are this really powerful trigger for our passengers that helps them to reminisce. So whether that's a passenger seeing a ship, then regaling you of their time as a merchant mariner,

or coming across horse poop on the trails in Stanley Park, and that triggering an entire story about being a mounted police officer as their career. Right. So amazing. And the horse have been here, too. The police. I think, yeah, police on horse. Yep. The police is a love here. Yes.

We'll investigate the poop. That one looks pretty fresh, actually. It does. The biggest challenge that we face as an organization is a pretty great one. It's that there is more demand than we can possibly provide. And providing a ride is not just purchasing one of these expensive bicycles. It's maintaining it. It's ensuring it.

It's paying for the staff who coordinate all these rides, who buy all the equipment, who do all of the training, who answer a phone and many emails helping seniors to schedule the rides to understand what bus they take to get to the location. We have so much responsibility. And so kind of keeping up with all of that is a daily challenge, but one that we know is worthwhile to undertake, because every single ride ends with when can we go again.

That's it for today. I'm Maynika Ramon Wilms. We want to send a special thank you to André Picard, Jimmy Jong, Jennifer Yang, Elena Smith, and Caroline Alfonso. This episode is mixed by Rachel Levy-McLaughlin. Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, Rachel Levy McLaughlin, and Michal Stein.

Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.