Make a Gift

Health care that is compassionate and respectful is both more humane and more effective. These qualities are at the core of the healing relationship, and are more important now than ever.

With your help, the Center for Ethics in Health Care can expand its mission to transform the landscape of health care through the growth of its current major initiatives:

• Program in Compassionate Communication
   
• The Ronald W. Naito Directorship in Serious Illness Education Endowment Fund
   
• The Educate Future Health Care Ethics Leaders Endowment Fund
   
• POLST (Portable Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment)

Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of our supporters, the work of the Center for Ethics is 96% funded through philanthropy. This allows the Center to maintain a strong independent voice in its work to ensure compassionate and ethical health care for all Oregonians.

To explore giving opportunities, please contact: Liz Arrington, CSPG, Senior Director of Development 503-705-1531 / arringtl@ohsu.edu

Companion Quilt Program

When patient E. Jay Greger was nearing death after sudden cardiac arrest, her family gathered lovingly around her to say their heartfelt goodbyes. A vibrantly colored hand-crafted quilt was placed gently on the bed as the family drew near. With this simple gesture, medical technology that could no longer sustain E. Jay’s life receded into the background, and E. Jay herself and her devoted family came fully into focus.

E.Jay's husband Len, her soulmate of 60 years, recalls:

“That is the last view I had of her; lying under the companion quilt. Here at home, it provides a sense of her presence to me and my family. This quilt will forever be that presence, and it is helping me to come to a stage of peace.”

Each year the companion quilt program provides handmade quilts that are placed on the beds of terminally ill patients in the hospital. The family is welcome to take the quilt home as a loving keepsake after their loved one dies. Every quilt is a gift of love, and offers incalculable comfort to patients and their loved ones during this sacred time.

If you or a group you know would like to contribute a quilt, or quilts, to this program,  please call the Center for Ethics in Health Care at 503-494-4466 or feel free to email us at ethics@ohsu.edu.

Thank you to all of those who have contributed to the OHSU companion quilts program. We are forever grateful.

Companion Quilt brochure