Catholic Home for Dying Project Moving Forward in NE Portland | Catholic Sentinel Page 1 of 5

Catholic home for dying project moving forward in NE Portland | Catholic Sentinel Page 1 of 5

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October 17, 2008

News News Stories Print Edition: 08/22/2008 Recent News Catholic Latest Edition home for dying project

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Columns By Ed Langlois Archbishop John Vlazny A group of Catholic health workers

Bishop Robert Vasa and church leaders in Oregon is approaching a compassionate Mary Jo Tully dream that began when assisted Letters to the Editor suicide became legal in the state. Classified Ads Martha and Mary Ministries has a Obituaries plot of land in Northeast Portland CNS Headlines and is pushing to raise $430,000 to Election '08 Issues break ground for a home for those who are dying. The project will offer

around-the-clock care for patients who cannot stay in their own homes, letting them know their lives have real value, despite what assisted suicide implies.

“Even though people may feel worthless, we have the responsibility to do our best to convince them they are worthy, regardless of how dependent or how weak or vulnerable they feel,” says Patricia Cary, a hospice nurse

who is leading the project. Organizers say the five-bedroom center would serve about 60 residents per year, plus support

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loved ones.

The idea for the home emerged when Oregon voters approved assisted suicide in 1994 and again in 1997 after a repeal bid. Hoping to quell the fear of dying that led to the votes, Cary and others imagined a licensed adult care home with a chapel and garden. The dream included an education center for those who want to learn about resources in care at the end of life.

Auxiliary Bishop Kenneth Steiner, other priests, doctors and nurses began meeting in the late 1990s. Teams examined the nation’s best community-based care homes as models.

At the Martha and Mary Ministries home, patient care would be covered by Medicaid, private pay and donations. The services would be open to people of any faith or no faith. “It is not just an angry response to assisted suicide,” Cary explained in 2003. “It is a fresh approach. We know dying is a spiritual experience. We as Catholics have clear teaching that every single person has value in every single moment of life. We have sacraments, prayer, the saints. We realized we had so much to offer. We thought that if we as a state were going to be the only place where assisted suicide was offered, we had better be known for compassionate end-of-life care, too.”

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The whole point of the project, Cary says, is to demonstrate Jesus.

In Oregon, residential hospice programs are for patients in crisis. If the crisis passes, the dying person must leave.

Most patients at the end of life do not need acute care, but “loving, attentive, competent care,” Cary explains.

The home would operate with a core of paid specially trained caregivers. Volunteers would clean, tend the grounds, decorate rooms, do office work or visit patients. The idea, organizers say, is to make end-of-life care everyone’s task.

Organizers chose the name from the Gospel story of two sisters who are friends of Jesus. In the story, Martha worked busily preparing the household for the visit of Jesus, while Mary sat at the teacher’s feet and listened. The important work at the end of life is both active and contemplative, says Cary.

The chapel, rooted in Catholic tradition but welcoming people of all or no faith, would be the heart of the project, says Cary, a member of Holy Redeemer Parish in Portland.

“Dying is a spiritual experience – for the dying person, for loved ones – yet few places provide dying residents and their families a place for prayer and meditation,” she says.

The education center would include

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a library, plus computers for web access and telephones for families to use to get in touch with community resources. The center would offer education sessions in various settings on issues of dying and death.

Even before the home goes up at NE 44th and Holman, the volunteers are at work providing end-of-life care. In the spring, Martha and Mary Ministries launched Compassionate Companions, a pilot program with nearby Porthaven Care Center. Volunteers hold vigil at the bedsides of dying residents. This program is based on No One Dies Alone, a program developed by Sandra Clarke, a nurse as Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene. Clark marshaled hospital workers and volunteers to sit with dying patients who had no loved ones to be with them.

The project is backed by many groups. At a spring benefit dinner that drew 200 supporters, speakers included Russ Danielson, Providence Health and Services Chief Executive for the Oregon Region, and Providence Sister Karin Dufault, executive director of Supportive Care for the Dying.

“Most people want to die in their own homes but many cannot,” Cary says. “None of the existing alternatives to private homes is specially dedicated to caring for people in their last months. Many facilities have little experience,

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expertise or staff available to provide the presence and care needed during the dying process. There is no place like ours in Oregon.”

http://www.sentinel.org/node/9351 10/17/2008