Religion News Service
EUGENE, OREGON, November 5, 2003: It has been nearly two years since Sandra Clarke, a nurse at Sacred Heart Medical Center, launched the program she calls No One Dies Alone, but already her grass-roots effort has earned national attention, and hospitals around the country are asking how they can replicate her idea. As baby boomers age, as families shrink and settle far apart and as more people choose to live by themselves, the number of those who have no one to be with them at the end of their lives likely will grow. Even now, Clarke picks up the phone two or three times a month to arrange for a volunteer to sit with someone who might otherwise die alone. Most of the patients the program serves are elderly. Many have outlived friends and relatives. A few have been abandoned by family. Some have alienated themselves. Others among the dying are far from home — new residents, or strangers traveling in the area when tragedy strikes, and family can’t get to the hospital soon enough. When the nursing staff learns of someone who has less than 72 hours to live, a “do not resuscitate” order and no one else around, they page Clarke, who gets out her list of volunteers and starts to call. Anyone who volunteers with No One Dies alone must be employed at the hospital or have at least six months’ experience volunteering there. Everyone attends an hour-long orientation, which covers topics such as how to determine whether someone is in pain and how to tell when someone has died. Volunteers get few instructions, though they are told not to talk about religion unless the patient asks. Clarke urges volunteers to treat the dying person as they would family or friends. “It has to come from the heart,” she says.