Palliative medicine is a new branch of medicine assessing and treating patients with active progressive and advanced illness with limited prognosis. The term palliative care refers to the activity of the entire interdisciplinary team and has been derived from hospice care. According to demographic data the rate of elderly population is increasing as well as the number of single-person households and so is the ratio of people suffering or deceased from malignant diseases and various chronical diseases which makes the organisation of palliative care in Croatia essential. The role of volunteers in palliative care is vital as they can provide enormous support to a palliative patient and his family. Volunteers work in a team and cannot replace any team members but they can be an immensely useful additional team member. Currently there are very few active voluntary programmes in health care institutions in the Republic of Croatia. This paper has presented the findings of a survey conducted from 12th to 22nd October 2019 on 100 examinees who are family members, employees of Novi Marof primary school, friends and employees of Extended treatment and palliative care unit of Varaždin General Hospital. The survey has been conducted anonymously and it has included general questions about age, gender and education of examinees as well as specific questions about the examinees’ knowledge about volunteers, palliative care patients, about their opinion on volunteers and about their personal feelings if they have had the opportunity to volunteer themselves. The results show that both health care professionals and common people find voluntary work useful and required at health care institutions and that palliative care is an extremely important branch of medicine.