St Charles Hospital Updates Family Info Sheet

Names of local funeral homes blocked out for illustration.

At Keelia Carver's urging, the chaplain's office at St Charles Hospital in Bend has updated the information sheet given to families after a loved one's death.

When Keelia's son Max was pronounced dead at the hospital, she and her husband were handed a list of local funeral homes and told they would have to hire one of them to secure release of his body. Keelia contacted the chaplain's office a year later, armed with the statutory references to a family's rights to care for their dead. In response, they agreed to revise their information sheet. Now titled with the more inclusive header "Funeral Homes and After Death Resources," the sheet lists Oregon Funeral Resources & Education alongside the commercial funeral home options.

We thank St Charles for taking this small but significant step towards supporting families' rights to access accurate, non-commercial information. More information on how hospitals, care facilities, and hospices can support this legal right is on our For Professionals page. Request an in-service training for your staff here.

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