Not filling vacant chaplaincy posts has a number of serious implications, writes Kathleen O’Connor
It was good to see in The Irish Catholic (31/7/14) that the vacant healthcare chaplaincy posts not been filled is being highlighted.
Regrettably, it is highly likely that they will not be filled in the near future, which has huge implications for patients, families and staff members of our hospitals.
Where there are vacant chaplain posts, who will hear the pain and anguish of patients and family members as they suffer illness and unsure futures? After all, we know that nurses and other health care staff are already over worked. Nurses who would like to spend more time with their patients, admit they do not have the time to do so.
Not filling chaplaincy posts also has implications for the training of chaplains. If we do not have job opportunities for our graduates from Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) centres, then there is a real possibility that there will not be enough students applying to participate in CPE. Eventually the training of professional chaplains may not be possible if CPE centres are forced to close.
Experiences
Two recent experiences highlighted for me the effect of chaplaincy posts not being filled. A friend of mine informed me that her mother was dying in Cork University Hospital. At one stage in the dying process, her mother wanted to speak to a chaplain. The request was made and the nurse said that she would call the priest. This lady said that she did not want a priest, she wanted a female chaplain. The nurse replied that there were only priests. My friend was stunned and could not believe that there was no lay chaplain available to her mother.
Another recent story highlighted the need for education. A colleague told me that a friend of his was by her mother’s bed for over a month in the same hospital. It was an extremely difficult time for this person. My friend asked did she not ask for the support of a chaplain. The response was: “What’s a chaplain?”
We are in an age when the language that we take for granted surrounding our profession is not known to a new generation of people who do not have the connection with the Church that my generation took for granted.
While Sr Pat O’Donovan, head of healthcare at the Conference of Religious Ireland (CORI), regrets that her submission was not quoted in the Oireachtas health committee’s report, it is heartening that our politicians are giving time to the important issue of “dying with dignity”.
I am aware that the National Association of Healthcare Chaplains (NAHC) was represented by Margaret Naughton who made a presentation to the Oireachtas committee on health on the role of a chaplain in the dying process.
The committee made 32 recommendations as to how to improve the dying process in Ireland. It highlighted “holistic care”, and spiritual care was mentioned in the context of palliative care, which is defined and quoted as: “An approach to care that improves the quality of life of patients and their families facing problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering by means of early identification and impeccable assessment and treatment of pain and other problems, physical, psychological and spiritual.”
Challenge
The challenge for those remaining working in the field of pastoral care is to put flesh on ‘spiritual care’ by providing professional spiritual care and by educating colleagues, as well as being part of the multi-disciplinary team. (Pastoral care implies spiritual and religious care; or to enable patients and others to use their spiritual and religious resources in the healing process.)
Providing pastoral care in the current context in Ireland is the ability to be with patients on their journey of pain, suffering and uncertainty with great sensitivity, mindfulness, care and compassion. Many people will not have an active faith, so the quality of our attention to their vulnerability and being able to meet them where they are on their journey is what will make a difference to the experience of the patient.
A CPE student who did his programme with me in Cork University Hospital was told by a nurse that he did not need to visit a particular patient because “he is an agnostic and he is also very angry”.
This student ignored the nurse’s direction and visited the man. They struck up a good relationship and, before the patient left the hospital, he insisted on meeting this student chaplain. In his expression of gratitude, he said: “You were the hand of hope for me.”
This student was a person of great authenticity and presence. His attentiveness to the man’s story and vulnerability resulted in meeting the needs of the patient.
In our encounters, we have the possibility of incarnating hope, love, forgiveness and compassion. For people of faith these experiences may be named as the presence of the divine. For others, the experience of being listened to and cared for in a pastoral encounter will be viewed as a help to them on the journey of life. Does it matter? God is present in every situation. As chaplains, we believe that all our encounters are sacramental, a sign of God’s love and compassion in our midst. Some patients will want to receive the sacraments of the Church and these will be very meaningful if experienced as the culmination of God’s care incarnated in the pastoral encounter.
Providing sensitive and compassionate pastoral care on the wards is possibly the best advertisement for promoting chaplaincy. In the absence of numbers of chaplains on the wards, it is heartening to know that holistic care is being promoted by an Oireachtas committee on health.
It is also significant that chaplaincy is being integrated in the National Strategy on Palliative Care, End of Life and Bereavement. In its ‘competency framework’, the provision of pastoral care is integrated into the document, highlighting the holistic care of patients and family members.
The chaplains who made this possible need to be congratulated. Their contribution will hopefully make it easier to argue for chaplaincy posts to be filled in our acute hospitals and healthcare facilities.
*Kathleen O’Connor is the former Director of Clinical Pastoral Education at Cork University Hospital.