Flushing nurse is hospice vol of year

When most people think of the Visiting Nurse Service of New York (VNSNY), they think about home care nurses helping people get better.
But there are people at the end of their life, who simply aren’t going to get better.
For them, VNSNY has a hospice service, and this year they have chosen Flushing resident Mary Toskas as their Hospice Care Volunteer of the Year.
Toskas, a retired registered nurse, is just one of more than 700 volunteers at VNSNY. Of these, about 150 contribute nearly 15,000 hours of hospice services per year, according to the organization.
“I’d been retired for about a year and was looking for some volunteer work to do,” said the soft-spoken Toskas. “After years if nursing duty, it was quite an adjustment,” she said.
It was her husband of “just 40 years,” Tony, who saw a newspaper ad for VNSNY and called. “She found it difficult to find rewarding volunteer work,” he said.
“He told me, ‘Don’t give up, keep working at it,’ and then he found the ad,” Toskas recalled. “It was perfect; my years of nursing prepared me to do this - get into the patient’s personality.”
After training on the rules and laws pertaining to health care providers (for more information, visit the web site at www.vnsny.org/mainsite/services/s_hospice.html) for a few days, she went into the field.
“There are no set rules,” she explained, “Some want a therapist, sometimes you just go to the store.” Volunteers can say yes or no to an assignment.
For most of the last year, Toskas has been visiting a 90-something woman in Elmhurst. “She’s very smart and alert - just nearing the end.” The woman wanted to crochet a baby blanket for her great-granddaughter “out west.”
“I’m crazy about it, so we worked on it together,” Toskas recounted. “It was wonderful that she actually assembled the blanket herself and carefully packaged it to send to her family.”
“(Our) mission… in hospice care is supported by the commitment of volunteers like Mary,” said VNSNY spokesperson Jessica Wickliffe, who explained that the “comfort and care” Toskas provides extends to the family.
“During her first month as a volunteer, the patient’s daughter had to be hospitalized,” Wickliffe recalled. “Mary called for an emergency home health aide to stay with the patient and visited the patient’s daughter on a daily basis,” she recounted.
Her internal strength was put to the test early. Her current patient is her fourth - she dealt with three others in just that first month. One died after a single visit, another died between the time Toskas called them to schedule a visit and her arrival.
Toskas doesn’t see herself as extraordinary. “We all die; it’s a universal thing,” she explained, “You need someone to be there for you.”
She’s impressed with VNSNY and their support services, particularly Janeen Thompson, Coordinator of Volunteers for the Bronx and Queens. “She really supports you - she’s both your cheerleader and therapist,” Toskas declared.
Apparently, they’re impressed with Toskas. She was praised at a luncheon celebrating “National Volunteer Week” at the end of March and will be awarded as “Hospice Volunteer of the Year” on Thursday, May 29, at event at Cipriani on 23rd Street in Manhattan.