Covid 19: The hospital
Chaplain in an hour of need
 |
| The NHS Nightingale Hospital, Birmingham |
Just like army Chaplains in times of war, hospital Chaplains
are providing support and spiritual care to patients battling the unseen enemy
that is Covid-19
By Lydia O’Kane
Along with the thousands of healthcare professionals who are
working tirelessly on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic, there are also
the unsung hospital Chaplains who are providing spiritual care to both patients
and staff.
They are there for the Sacraments, support, or a simple chat
as patients, their families and hospital staff alike go through these
unchartered waters.
During this crisis, many priests have volunteered to become
Chaplains at a number of temporary hospitals that have been constructed to deal
with the influx of Coronavirus cases.
One of those is Fr John Waters, a priest in the Archdiocese
of Birmingham in the UK, and a collaborator with Vatican Radio’s English
Section.
He will be based at Birmingham's temporary National Health
Service (NHS) run Nightingale hospital, which has a 5,000-bed capacity facility
and is situated in the city’s National Exhibition Centre.
The hospital, which was built in eight days, is due to start
receiving patients in the next week, and the Chaplains who are to be based
there have already been through their orientation.
Heeding the call
Fr John was ordained to the priesthood just last year, and
said that when the call went out for new Chaplains, he had no hesitation in
volunteering.
“More than half the reason why I joined the priesthood… was
to be there to accompany people through all sorts of situations, whatever life
throws at us, and when the call went out for new Chaplains to be assigned to
the Nightingale hospital… I responded very enthusiastically, I was very keen to
get involved.”
Providing spiritual care
He explained that there will be around nine or ten Chaplains
who will be on a rota system at the Nightingale hospital. They will be
physically on site for the working day, for two days at a time, and the
Chaplains will remain on call during the night to be called out should someone
need anointing.
Their primary role will be to provide the Sacraments,
primarily Anointing of the Sick, but they will also be there as a support, or
as Fr John puts it, “someone to lean on for the real frontline workers; the
doctors and the nurses of the NHS who will be putting in shifts that are
roughly 12 or 13 hours long.”
Fr John and all the Chaplains at the Nightingale will be
working in a very sterilized environment, and they too will have to wear protective
clothing which will include a surgical gown and mask. Anything brought into the
sterilized area for sacramental care will also have to remain in the ward.
Accompaniment in isolation
For the patients who are fighting the Coronavirus, the wards
in hospitals like the Nightingale are their battlefields. As they fight this
invisible foe, they are also prevented from seeing their families and friends
for fear of contamination. Speaking about this aspect of the disease, Fr John
said, “this is where people are going to feel the effects of this war on Covid,
much more so, because they can’t be physically by their loved one’s side in
their last moments to reassure them, and to pray for them…I was ordained a
priest to be of service, and so I will be there with people in those low
moments; if that’s the only thing I can do, that’s the only thing I will do.”
The new Chaplain underlined that nothing really prepares you
for something like this. Recalling his orientation day at the Nightingale
hospital with his fellow Chaplains, he said that on seeing the hundreds if not
thousands of beds set up to receive Covid patients the general feeling was “Oh
my God”.
Wisdom and advice
As he begins this journey as a hospital Chaplain in these
most challenging of times, Fr John said he is falling back on some advice given
to him by his very first Spiritual Director at the Seminary, who assured him
that ‘God never asks us to do anything impossible’, but he challenges us to go
further than we think we can, and discover new strengths and new depths of
character within ourselves.
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