Breda O'Brien
The View
It was reported last week that the HSE is to begin vaccinations in religious orders’ congregated settings. The pandemic has taken a terrible toll on nursing homes in general, as pointed out by The Irish Catholic since very early in the first lockdown. However, news about religious orders’ nursing homes and other settings has been slower to emerge into the mainstream. The Jesuits, Augustinians and Spiritans have all had great losses, while the Holy Rosary Sisters in Newbridge have recently lost six members within two weeks.
Communities
Each of those men and women would have lived as members of communities akin to families, often for decades on end. While some of those who have died were elderly, even when in the case of underlying conditions Covid-19 can shorten a person’s life and deprive them of additional time.
Just like everyone else, funerals of people in religious life are now small affairs. In the past, the funerals of those in religious life were an opportunity to express thanks in a public, communal way for the good done during a life. This was particularly true for those who had been involved with communities, such as teachers, nurses, and social workers.
Some orders do not have dedicated nursing home facilities, while others have centralised care settings”
The HSE has said that religious orders did not come to its attention because they are private organisations and sometimes not registered with it as nursing homes. It is true that provision for elderly members of congregations varies widely. Some orders do not have dedicated nursing home facilities, while others have centralised care settings. Still others attempt to keep older members within their communities.
Given that religious in Ireland are an ageing group anyway, it seems very late for the HSE to be becoming aware of them. Is it a case of out of sight, out of mind? Could it be a case of eaten bread is soon forgotten? Some of the women’s congregations were formidable managers of well-known hospitals.
Unedifying calls
Just a couple of years ago, there were unedifying calls for the Irish Sisters of Charity to have no role in the new National Maternity Hospital. The rhetoric against the sisters became very bitter indeed. (This writer believed that it was impossible for the Sisters of Charity to cooperate with a facility that would be performing abortions, which is an entirely different point. St Vincent’s benefited for years from the unsparing dedication of the sisters and it was appalling to see them being vilified.)
Not only did religious like the Irish Sisters of Charity and the Sisters of Mercy run efficient, clean hospitals, they were also involved in selfless nursing in previous pandemics.
For example, Mother Mary Aikenhead was called on to help when cholera hit Dublin. An old prison, Grangegorman, was pressed into service as an emergency hospital. Conditions were dreadful. Irish writer, L.M. Reid describes how in the middle of 1832, as the cholera epidemic was at its worst six hundred patients were admitted in five days. Nurses were impossible to come by. The Sisters of Charity in Stanhope Street and Gardiner Street responded to the call, even though between 50 and 80 patients were dying every day. Only one sister caught the disease and even she recovered. The nuns washed themselves and their habits thoroughly every day when they returned to the convent to prevent the spread of infection. By the time the cholera epidemic burnt out, there were 50,769 deaths.
Cholera
The Sisters of Mercy staffed a cholera hospital at the same time at the Townsend Street Depot hospital. The sisters nursed in shifts from 8am to 8pm for seven months. When the Mater Hospital was set up, they battled through successive waves of typhus, scarlet fever, and other epidemics. Sisters of Mercy ended up volunteering in the Crimean war, where they initially met with a frosty reception from Florence Nightingale but ended up influencing her style of nursing. She was particularly influenced by an Irish Sister of Mercy who had been based in England, Mother Clare Moore.
The contribution of religious orders to Ireland is immeasurable. It is also true that some religious orders fell far short of Christian standards in their actions in mother and baby homes and in industrial schools. It is possible for both those statements to be true but in our current world, we seem to be only able to deal with one aspect of the truth at one time.
Tragedy
It will be a tragedy if, for religious orders, the words of Mark Anthony in Julius Caesar, prove to be true: “The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones.”
And yet, I think a time of more balance will come and that the good done by religious orders will eventually be recognised. May that time come soon.