Volunteer in Health Services | The Ultimate Guide

You work in the medical field or intend to study a medical related subject? Take your chance to get some knowledge ahead or improve your medical skills by becoming a volunteer in health services.

Due to recent developments in terms of war, terror or starvation, many underprivileged countries are forced to seek help from aid agencies or highly developed nations. Especially rural areas and disadvantaged communities are cut off from proper access to health care and professional stuff and therefore, are basically on their own. To foster an equal development of all areas in one country, a volunteer in health services can help to provide necessary resources. Moreover, assisting the teams on the ground by ensuring that proper education for doctors, nurses and locals are accessible. If you’re not sure about your options or how you’ll make a real impact, read about the different volunteer categories in health care.

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• Experience: By working in the medical field as a volunteer in health services, you’ll have the unique opportunity to get familiar with the workings and atmosphere of healthcare facilities. As you’ll work in close contact with medical professionals, you may get inspired to seek your own job in the healthcare profession.
• Skills: If you already work in the medical field, use your time as a volunteer to develop new skills or to extend the knowledge you already have. Furthermore, your dedication to volunteer in health service can be a great opportunity to test, if you can imagine to work in this sector for the long term. Learn about the work environment, personalities of employees and potential task to evaluate, if this kind of work fits for you
• Appreciation: Especially the experience to volunteer in health services can influence your life on the long term. The project as well as the local community you are working with will appreciate your dedication more than you can imagine. Of course, giving is rewarding itself, but to see that your work really made a difference is the biggest reward for every volunteer.
• Improvisation: Besides learning a lot of new things about situation and progress of sustainability in the prevailing country, you will learn how to improvise as well. In some situations, there aren’t all necessary resources available so that you’ll have to find extraordinary solutions quite quickly

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Dental

As oral health is the window to the overall health of a person, it’s crucial to provide appropriate dental care so that even the disadvantaged communities can keep their beautiful smile. While assisting professional dentists in cities or villages, your able to do hands-on tasks like extractions, filling or scaling. If you’re thinking about getting a job in dental care or if you study a similar subject already, volunteering might be the perfect chance to prove your qualification in this field of health services.

Medical Care

Even basic medical care is not accessible in many communities and clinics based in these areas are often short in supplies. Therefore, volunteers are needed in all facets of the healthcare field, at all levels. To increase resources, you can assist nurses in their daily tasks, raise the awareness for HIV or support rural hospitals, if you’re a medical student. Help to raise medical attention to children and families and support the on-site teams in bringing underprivileged areas to international medical standards.

Nursing

When it comes to nurses, the global demand is quite high, especially in developing countries. If you are a nurse or if you already have special skills in fields of nursing, you should definitely take the chance to go abroad and make valuable learning experiences as well as expanding your knowledge in a special field. As a volunteer in health services with a focus on nursing, there are basically two major areas that you can contribute to: geriatric care and general nursing. Make a difference by sharing your knowledge with medical professionals from all over the world and contribute to the work on the ground by attending to the post-natal needs of expectant mothers or help the elderly to solve their challenges with old age.

Besides working in a hospital or clinic, volunteers are needed in communities and schools to train required environmental sanitation practices. Contribute to your medical learning progress by contributing to a better cause.

Nutrition

In many disadvantaged communities, an appropriate nutrition isn’t priority number one when it comes to general health care issues and tends to be not noticed in many cases. That this is an important cause indeed, is easy to prove based on the number of chronic heart diseases, diabetes or vitamin deficiencies. To make a difference, volunteers are needed to promote the importance of appropriate nutrition by educating children in schools, or help to seed sustainable foods like wheat or corn.

Prevention

Even though there are still new HIV infections reported every year, the numbers have been constantly decreasing for the last few years. This improvement mainly developed due to many positive changes in the educational sector as well as a better access to affordable treatments. As a volunteer in health services, you can contribute to the on-going development by assisting the projects in assessing the prevailing knowledge of local communities to elaborate a suitable educational setting afterwards. Besides caring for a proper education, a further task of a volunteer is the mobilisation of locals to get tested. Help to conduct these tests and therefore, help to get the number of new infections closer to zero.

Rural

Due to the infrastructural situation, many communities in Africa or Asia are living in rural communities without proper access to technology, health services or education. Become a volunteer in health services and help to make a difference in rural communities. As many different projects are located in underprivileged areas, you’ll have a wide range of projects that you can participate in. Become a health supporter in Ghana or a maternal health promoter in the South Sudan – either way, your effort helps to maintain the development of rural communities in the health care sector.

Where to volunteer

Because supporting environmental progress is an important cause all over the world, there are various destinations that offer you the option to volunteer in health services. Click on the map to see which opportunities are currently available.

Being a volunteer was an amazing experience that has changed my perspective regarding my future.
– Maiken (19), volunteer from Denmark

Important facts to Know

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In most cases, the work as a volunteer in health care implies close patient contact and might be confronted with low medical and hygiene standards. Before your trip starts make sure to get all proper vaccinations and precautionary medicine that you need.

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Crucial for the success of a health services program is the ability of all volunteers and local workers to work together as a team. Especially in health service you need to react really quickly. Therefore it’s indispensable to have reliable colleagues, who have to be at your side to assist you, as well you have to be their assistant too.

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[item title=”Health Status”]Not only are you exposed to various diseases – you may host viruses yourself. People in rural communities don’t have financial or infrastructural possibilities to receive proper vaccinations and therefore, the danger of infection becomes quite high. Don’t let it come so far and get a health-check in advance. Simultaneously ask your doctor for a health declaration. Within many programs, this is an essential step in your application process.[/item]
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Average Program for a volunteer in Health Services

• Average duration: 2 – 12 weeks
• Average fee: $220 / week
• Average working hours: 9.00 am – 15.00 pm
• Requirements: Basic English, minimum age of 18 years, university degree, health declaration 

How to Apply

After reading so much about your opportunities to make a difference as a volunteer in health services you’re probably interested how you can apply for your favourite project in particular. Just follow these steps and you’re free to volunteer abroad in no time.

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Find Opportunities

Browse your program in health services and have look at which program you would like to help. Choose where to volunteer and which cause you prefer to support.

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Send Application

Go to the program page of your favoured volunteer program and click on “Apply” on the right sidebar. Set the date for your stay, cross check your personal information, upload the required documents and click “send application” afterwards.

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Receive Invitation

If you’re accepted, the social project will send you an official invitation, including your duration and program fees. Accept the invitation to reserve your spot.

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Now you have every information you need to find your perfect match for your social trip abroad in health services. All you have to do now is browsing through the various programs on Volunteer World.

This platform is all about making volunteering simple and transparent. Featuring more than 500 volunteer programs in 70+ countries, it is a one-stop resource for volunteer abroad opportunities. If your are interested in other categories or ways to volunteer abroad, click here for more inspiration.