An Open Ear for Small and Big Worries

When two fight, the third one helps out, because doctors and patients do not always agree. Many disabled people even feel misunderstood. So they have a helpful intermediary on their side, ombudsperson Sabine Modersohn-Lösser looks after patients at the LVR-Clinic in Bonn for the past ten years.

01/06/2010

 
Sabine Modersohn-Lösser helps
consulting patients directly on site
in the LVR-Clinic; © LVR

It’s Thursday at 10 o’clock. For the last half hour, she has been sitting at her desk on the first floor of House 26 on the premises of the LVR-Clinic in Bonn. She listens intently to the messages on her voicemail, and takes as many detailed notes as she can. Shortly after, she finds more news in the mailbox outside her door. For ten years, Sabine Modersohn-Lösser is an honorary ombudsperson and takes care of patient’s needs at the LVR-Clinic in Bonn. She always comes on Thursdays between 9:30 and 12:30 – but often stays much longer.

Besides her work in school policy and local affairs, like for example at the welfare committee in Bonn, during the past few decades the woman that was born in the Harz mountains, has been involved in several areas of social life: therapeutic horse-riding for children with disabilities, drug prevention and mentoring prison inmates. She is also a co-founder of the “Bonn Lighthouse“Association, an association for outpatient and residential hospice care.

“The biggest part of my work as an ombudsperson is listening to a patient, because these patients are often sick and lonely." She visits patients, who contact her via phone or by writing in their wards, to personally talk about their concerns. At the wards, Sabine Modersohn-Lösser is a steady fixture and known as a psychological guardian. She always has a good rapport with doctors and the nursing staff: “Everybody receives me as a neutral mediator,” she describes her experiences.

Her conversations with the patients are not always about complaints. “Sometimes patients have ideas for improvements, which are gratefully accepted." Many organizational issues could be easily and quickly resolved through a conversation. “Often the patients don’t have the courage to do this on site. I am their first point of contact."

Fear is not a factor in mentoring. If the patient is in a critical phase, a staff member’s “Please be careful” always suffices. Throughout her many years of honorary commitment, Sabine Modersohn-Lösser gained a lot of – and so far no negative- experiences.

Social commitment has always been very important to her and this is going to stay that way, believes the ombudperson of the LVR Clinic in Bonn even in the tenth year of her assignment: “I have often received help in my life. When I did not count on it, somebody was there for me. I just want to pass it down."

REHACARE.de; Source: Landschaftsverband Rheinland

- More about the Landschaftsverband Rheinland at www.lvr.de