In her work as a nursing supervisor, Sandra Clarke has become acutely aware of the suffering and loneliness many terminal patients experience in the last part of their lives. In response, Sandra has created a revolutionary program to help terminal patients come to terms with their passing, particularly those patients who have no family or support network. The volunteer program – No One Dies Alone (NODA) – has brought peace, dignity, and a measure of comfort to those patients who must face their deaths alone.
The program reflects Sandra’s deeply compassionate nature, and it tends to a dying patient’s most essential need for dignity, relief from pain, and companionship. Through NODA, the patient can exercise agency and feel a sense of human connection; through the NODA volunteer, a patient has a compassionate companion to see him or her through the last of life’s transitions. In addition, the hospital staff has the volunteer to advocate for the patient, and the volunteer has an opportunity to give his or her most profound gifts to another human being: time, respect, and a sense of dignity.
During the past year, Clarke has spearheaded the publishing of the NODA guide. To date, over 400 guides have been distributed across the U.S., Canada, Japan, and Singapore. Clarke has almost single-handedly developed the NODA concept, methodology, volunteer base, and training. She wrote the NODA guide based upon countless hours of reflection and research at home, and on her years of care-giving at the hospitals in which she has worked. Clarke has volunteered all of her NODA-related work, and she has waived all copyrights and remuneration for her program guidebooks and related materials. She has worked as the sole phone coordinator for NODA’S first two years, and she continues as an active phone coordinator and as a compassionate NODA volunteer companion.
Clarke was moved to create NODA when, as a nurse making hospital rounds, she did not have the time to sit with a frightened man as he lay dying alone. The memory has haunted Clarke. For the man’s fate was – and in a very real way is – that of every human being. Clarke felt that every person has the right to dignity during his or her last transition, and almost every person has the need to feel connection, bonds, and a sense of companionship in his or her last days. A passionate human rights supporter, and inspired by Mother Theresa, Sandra Clarke has created a program through which volunteers can bring dignity, compassion, and human comfort to another as he or she experiences her last days and hours.
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