Volunteers comfort the gravely ill when families can’t: Health | adn.com
It is a saddening fact to know that your loved one or anyone for that matter dying at a time when there is noone with them. I read about this program some time ago founded by a Nurse.
I hope I can find a group here.
Outside, the sun shines.
Inside, Beverly Daughton is dying.
The 54-year-old former nurse lies sedated and sleeping in a hospital room at Providence Alaska Medical Center, her mouth slightly open, a small teddy bear propped by her arm. She’s been fighting rare autoimmune diseases for more than 25 years, and her body is worn down.
Kristen Newcomer, a dark-haired 24-year-old Chugiak Elementary School second-grade teacher, leans down and runs her fingers through Daughton’s hair. Her face shines with kindness.
Newcomer isn’t Daughton’s daughter, relative or even friend. She’s one of the more than 50 volunteers for the No One Dies Alone program, which coordinates bedside vigils for those unable to have family or friends at their deathbed.
The program was founded in 2002 by Sandra Clarke, a critical-care nurse at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Ore., after a patient died alone on her shift. It soon spread across the country. Providence Alaska Medical Center picked it up last summer, after Kathy Archey, then working for Providence’s Palliative Care Department, lost her mother; she died alone in Texas.
“I couldn’t get there in time,” she said softly.
She teamed up with Dr. Edwin “Ted” Heffernan, medical director of the department, which cares for patients at the end of their lives. The two researched program needs in Anchorage and soon discovered that three to five people were dying alone each month throughout the Providence Alaska health care system.
“That,” Heffernan said, “is too many.”
‘IT’S ALSO ABOUT JOY’
Being a NODA volunteer isn’t for everyone. But according to Archey, now Anchorage NODA coordinator, those who participate were instantly aware that it was right for them.
Marie Lavigne, a 40-year-old medical social worker, wife and mother, signed up for NODA as soon as she heard about the program. She ended up doing a shift on her birthday last year, which, she said, was the perfect way to start the day.
“This is a gift we have,” she said. “We walk in people’s grief and sadness. We’re an unusual group of volunteers.”
While on a vigil, she tries to leave her daily life behind and focus fully on the patient. During quiet times, she imagines who they were and what they loved. If the patient is restless or scared, she concentrates on providing comfort.
"One woman kept screaming, ‘Don’t leave me alone,’ " she said. “All she wanted me to do was hold her hand and see my face.”
Some people are responsive; some even talk. Others are unconscious but, in accordance with NODA philosophy, treated as if aware of sounds and surroundings. Lavigne touches them on the shoulder or holds their hand and tells them about the sunrise or how much they are loved.
“You leave and you absolutely feel this powerful sense of love,” she said. “I know that this is the same sense of love I’d feel if, God forbid, a family member died.”
She also feels strangely refreshed. She’s been on about 15 vigils. When a patient dies on her watch, she sits in the chapel and prays for them. Then she lets it go.
“It’s also about joy,” she said. “I have never left a shift feeling troubled.”