From MUHC nurse to volunteer
Tamila Barab in the Emergency waiting room of the Glen site.
After 26 years of nursing and five years of volunteering at the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), Tamila Barab’s enthusiasm and energy to help others continues to grow.
Barab may have retired from the MUHC in 2010, but she has not slowed down since. Immediately after leaving her post as nurse, she started volunteering at the RVH Information Desk as well as with Les Petits Frères, a community agency that tries to break seniors’ isolation. She also started working in the Memory Clinic at the Montreal General Hospital one day a week as a nurse, a position she held until just recently.
“At the information desk, I was pretty useful because I knew the hospital and could answer in five languages,” she says. “I can speak Russian, Persian, Spanish, English and French.”
Born in Iran to Russian parents, Barab attended a private French school, where she also learned the local language of Persian. After studying and working as a nurse for a few years, she moved to Montreal.
Although she’s still very attached to the former RVH—“Ross 4 [the geriatric floor] was my second home,” she says with nostalgia—, she really likes the new RVH at the Glen site. “The new hospital is very big and looks great,” she says.
If you are interested in volunteering at the MUHC, please call 514 934-1934 to reach the following people:
Nevine Fateen, ext. 34300 for the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Montreal Neurological Hospital and the Montreal Chest Institute
Rita Giulione, ext. 43674 for Lachine and Montreal General hospitals
Anne Hébert, ext. 22764 for the Montreal Children’s Hospital
“When Human Resources communicated with our department asking for volunteers to help during staff orientation and with training days this past winter at the Glen, we immediately thought of Tamila because she learns quickly and she has a lovely personality,” explains Nevine Fateen, manager of Volunteer Services for the Royal Victoria Hospital, the Neuro and the Montreal Chest Institute.
Barab’s reputation as an approachable polyglot has now followed her to the Glen, where she volunteers in the Emergency Department. There she welcomes patients one day a week and lends a hand to Allophone patients.
“I would like to give some time at the Glen Information Desk too because I really like orienting and guiding patients and visitors,” she adds. “What better way to spend my retirement years?!”