Volunteers ensure dying patients don’t face final moments alone
No One Dies Alone is a movement that trains hospital staff to sit with patients who have no family or friends at the end of life.
(Aging Untold) — For some hospital patients, having someone by their side when they die is not a given. A group of volunteers makes the choice to ensure fewer people are alone when they take their final breaths through a movement called No One Dies Alone.
The movement is still growing, reaching hospitals outside the U.S.
Tammie Skubal spends her days on a cardiac unit at the University of Kansas Health System, organizing equipment and prepping rooms.
She is a No One Dies Alone volunteer and has been in the room with three people when they died.
Program born from nurse’s regret
The program exists because of one man who died alone.
Sandra Clark was a nurse in Eugene, Oregon, when a man asked if she would sit with him. He could barely speak.
“I’ll come back as soon as I’ve checked on my other patients,” Clark said.
By the time she returned to his room, he had already died. His arm was outstretched from the bed.
“I get choked up every time I think about it,” Clark said.
She couldn’t stay with him because of rounds. After he died, she came up with an idea to fill the gaps for hospital staff with volunteers. No One Dies Alone was born.
Program spreads globally
Marty Blodgett and Anne Gordon were colleagues of Clark’s from the start. They sat vigil with the dying and spread word of the program.
By the time Gordon left as program coordinator, there were more than 500 programs in the United States that were either No One Dies Alone or based on No One Dies Alone.
The movement is still growing, reaching hospitals outside the U.S. in Singapore, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and beyond.
Training focuses on presence, not judgment
Chaplain Becky Johnson runs the program at the University of Kansas Health System.
“We train employees to become volunteers, to sit with patients that have no family or friends when they’re nearing the end of their life,” Johnson said.
Volunteers usually don’t know the backstory of why patients are alone.
“We teach that that’s not important for them to care for a patient at this time,” Johnson said. “Let’s not judge why someone is by themselves.”
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