Ministering in ‘war-zone’ wards

Myths and conspiracies about Covid would stop if everyone saw the first-hand effects, Chai Brady hears

The worst thing anyone could do after the world manages to suppress the virus and life returns to some normality is to pretend nothing happened, as the many challenging situations people have faced must be acknowledged and new ways of ministering must be discussed post-Covid, according to a hospital chaplain.

Fr Tony McAleese (36) has seen first-hand the pain families have experienced due to Covid and the ongoing restrictions through his ministry as a chaplain in the Mater hospital in Belfast. While the situation is improving in hospitals “it’s still extremely difficult”, he told this newspaper.

The hospital is split into green, amber and red zones, which require increasing levels of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) to enter. “I got called into a red zone, it was for a person who required the Last Rites. I’ve never been a chaplain in the army or anything like that but when I was walking out, it gave me that real sense that it was almost like a war zone,” says Fr McAleese, “The staff were doing everything they could, they were exhausted, they were working as hard as they could be expected to and beyond.”

Member

Fr McAleese was accompanied by a member of the patient’s family who was also in full PPE. A nurse joined them in prayer while he administered the Last Rites. In situations like that Fr McAleese says: “You’re administering the Last Rites, you’re trying to be there for the family and you’re aware that there’s other family members who can’t be there because they’re not allowed in”.

While many families have suffered due to restrictions on hospital visits, Fr McAleese says hospitals have made huge strides in keeping people connected virtually. “You could be administering the Last Rites while a nurse is holding up an iPad and the family are joining in virtually, which is a really surreal experience,” he says.

“It’s very creative and it’s good that the family can still join in. I have to say the family members who did join in were very appreciative of both how they were able to participate insofar as they could, but also for the advancement in technology. You know if we go back 15 years there wasn’t WiFi in hospitals. There’s a huge advancement in technology, and the ability to do this is great, but it still doesn’t substitute from the human contact which a lot of people do miss.

“When you go around patients who aren’t in red zones, who are just in an amber zone, their only contact with loved ones is through a phone call or FaceTime or some doctor or nurse contacting them each day to update them on their loved one. It’s not the same.”

There are occasions when some family members are allowed visit a patient, but they are “quite rare” and it is a challenge to offer the same levels of comfort compared to pre-Covid times, the chaplain explains. “We’re trying to be there for them but when they’re breaking down your normal instinct is to give them a hug and you can’t do that. It is a surreal situation in a hospital.”

With that being said, he hastens to add that “it’s not all doom and gloom”, with the vaccine rollout and low case numbers in the North there are less and less red zones in hospitals and not as many people are being transferred to ICUs which has led to increased optimism in the hospital.

Although there is somewhat of a return to normality, with more patients presenting to hospital with non-Covid related symptoms, Fr McAleese says those who come in are still subject to tough restrictions on family visits. “That can be hard. The one message that we’ve tried to make known is that the chaplains are still available, we’re still here. My role as a chaplain isn’t just for the patient, my role is for the patient, for the family and for the staff,” he says.

From the beginning of the pandemic – due to increased restrictions on ward access – the chaplains decided to be as present to people as possible, even if that meant standing in a hallway or the atrium “just providing support”.

He says: “We also set up a telephone number that people could ring, but a lot of the comfort at the moment is coming from the fact that things are starting to get back to a wee bit of normality, not fully but very slowly.”

Conspiracy

Fr McAleese says he still meets people who don’t believe Covid-19 exists.

“You see some people who almost don’t believe that there is Covid, who are acting as if there is no such thing. You really just want to slap them around the head and say, ‘guys wise up’, you know, if they saw half of what I’ve seen in the hospital, they wouldn’t doubt it.”

Fr McAleese says he doesn’t understand how the minority of people who believe Covid-19 is a conspiracy, dubbing it the ‘plandemic’ or ‘scamdemic’, can’t see what is happening around them. “By this stage we’re about a year on and I have to say there is probably nobody that this hasn’t affected in some way or another, through a family member or a close relation,” he says.

“There’s real basic health issues, breathing issues, the fatigue, the basics of just getting up and walking Covid patients have found difficult. Many people are coming in and some of them have been in bed for quite a long time, particularly if they’ve had to go to ICU.”

Regarding the future, Fr McAleese says that hope is certainly there but it must be accompanied with a sense of realism – an understanding Covid won’t just disappear.

“I know we’re all absolutely cheesed off with lockdown, with not being able to get away. But it’s there for good reason, it’s there to protect the NHS and each other. I’m as cheesed off with lockdown as the next person I’m sure but I can see the reason and the benefit of it.

“In the hospital, while my patient numbers during Covid were reducing, now my case numbers are through the roof, it’s not Covid but it’s people coming in for other issues and maybe they put it off or maybe now hospitals are able to get around to some of the issues that were there.”

He adds the hospital is still ticking over and will continue to do so for a while after the pandemic, when a majority of the population have been vaccinated. “I’m very fortunate and blessed being part of the healthcare system that I was able to get the vaccine because otherwise, given my age, I probably wouldn’t be getting it for quite a long time. I’m delighted,” he says.

Lent project

Outside his work as a hospital chaplain, Fr McAleese was industrious before and during Lent in organising a series of talks on the theme ‘Covid to Light’. Knowing there would most likely be a long third lockdown after Christmas due to the strain hospitals were under, he decided Lenten talks would allow people to gather together virtually and have discussions.

He says: “The reflections are based on our own experiences and how we transform these into something greater. That’s really the whole theme of the series, in terms of from Covid to Light, from when we started with Covid to now moving into a greater light, the light of Easter and how we move forward as a Church and as a faithful group of people. I think there needs to be a recovery of our understanding of Church.

Gathered

“A lot of people think Church is purely the building, and it isn’t, the Church is the gathered Faithful, whether it’s in a building or somewhere else, it’s the gathered Faithful who are and is the Church.”

From the beginning of the third lockdown until March 26, churches in the North were closed except for private prayer which led to a “great hunger” among some of the faithful, those of whom will most likely return to being physically present at church, Fr McAleese says.

However, he warns that it’s not enough to wait for people – who have been watching Mass online for the majority of the last year – to return.

“I think what has to change is our own perception of waiting for people to come back and presuming people will come back. I think we have to go out and try and bring the mission of Christ out and about,” Fr McAleese insists.

“The mission is still to let people know the love of Christ. How do we do that? It will be different, we’re going to have to use technology. I don’t think it’s an either or, I think like a lot of theology and a lot of Catholicism, it’s a both/and, it’s both an opened Church for people coming in and also a virtual way for those who are housebound or unable to get to the Church, I think that’s the approach we need to take.”

Walked

“One of the best things that Fr Eugene [O’Neill], the administrator here, and myself did during lockdown was we walked about the parish every week and just waved and said hello to people who we saw and let people know that we’re still here.

“That visual connection has made a greater impact than many other things that we have done in the parish. I think it is about getting out and it is about letting people see, getting away from that sense of ‘the priest: he says Mass and that’s it’.”

He adds that priests should move away from some of the meetings they attend and the boards they are on in order to “readjust our own focus to what actually is most important”.

Pointing to Zoom and similar software, Fr McAleese says they will allow for more creativity in parishes and often online events have a larger attendance.

“The thirst is there, people want to learn things, people want to discuss, they want to come together and journey together and while it is strange – there’s absolutely no doubt that for me trying to run a course looking at a computer screen is very strange and certainly something that I’m not used to – the fruit and the benefit of that and the messages of encouragement that came from people who joined in on our first talk can only drive me on further,” he says.

Looking at the long-term impact of Covid on the population, Fr McAleese said there must be a period of reflection.

“I think the worst thing we could do is just go back to normality, because that doesn’t acknowledge what we all went through,” he says.

There must be an opportunity to look at what a post-Covid ministry will look like and what it will mean for priests, Fr McAleese says, asking “how do we minister?”

“Both in terms of the grief that people will have suffered, the restrictions on funerals and so on and so forth, particularly with Covid, one of the cruellest parts I think is while wakes can’t happen if it’s Covid you can’t even have your loved one home. That’s one of the cruellest things, so what do we do?

“I think going forward we have to look at the hope that’s there, we have to see the advantages that we have, we’ve gained so much, we’ve gained a wider group of people who are wanting to join in in celebrations albeit from their home, but how do we cop in to that, how do we come together as a Church, and maybe that isn’t always in person.”

Benefits

“It’s looking at the benefits that are there, it’s trying to acknowledge the path that we went through but acknowledge it with a thankful heart that one, we’ve come through it and two, we’ve had lessons in it. So Covid hasn’t been and isn’t all negative, there has been some good things in it, I would never have used these online platforms as much as I did.”

The greatest achievement people have made during Covid, Fr McAleese says, is the realisation that there is a need for family and human connection at a time when it seemed Irish society was cheapening those connections and leading to people “almost alienating our family”.

“A family member is really sick, sure we’ll bring them to a nursing home or wherever,” says Fr McAleese, “But Covid has shown us the importance of needing to be there for our loved ones, our loved ones are worth more than our job… That’s what the Church is, we’re a family and I think that’s why there’s that hunger. People still want that connection, they still want to be with their family, with the Church family and biological family.”