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HOSPITAL chaplains are trained to minister to people who may be terminally ill, have a sick or dying child or have just lost a loved one. They are hoping to work more closely with churches across Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, training people to join them in their ministy in hospitals and to minister to the sick who may be living in their own parishes.
‘This is about seeing ways we can work with local churches,’ said the Revd Phil Sutton, head of chaplaincy and patient services at the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust. ‘This isn’t simply an appeal for volunteers but a look at how we can do this work together with churches. At the trust, a new training course is being launched this month for people interested in becoming a regular volunteer visitor. At all of the hospitals in the diocese, volunteer visitors work alongside the hospital chaplains, who are employed by the NHS.
At the Oxford trust there are eight full-time-equivalent ministers who are employed by the NHS. The chaplaincy service is available to all patients, but Phil stressed the need to convey to churches that they get the chance to work alongside people who have no experience of church.
Phil says; ‘There is a wider question around mission and it’s one that needs to be carefully and thoughtfully answered. For many of them it’s an extension of their church community that a minister should come and minister to them. That’s great, but we need to be not solely ministering to church people. If they are a church goer from Oxford than they are likely to have people from their own church coming to see them. We have people coming from Milton Keynes, Bedford, Europe and even the Falkland Islands in Oxford and they might not have many visitors. We want to encourage a dialogue with the church to help form an understanding of what we do in terms of a mission agenda.’
Another challenge is supporting those who have no faith, or come from another faith community.
The newly-refurbished chapel at Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital has a corner for Muslims to say their daily prayers. The hospital chaplains are well placed to help people from a variety of faith backgrounds to address issues including privacy and dignity, organ transplantation, priority needs for the release of bodies for funerals and issues related to drug treatments that may have links to particular dietary needs.
The training for hospital volunteers is of a professional standard, but the chaplaincy is keen to not cream off the best people from the parishes to be used solely for hospital visiting. Phil says: ‘ One model we used in Bath when I was a hospital chaplain there was for churches to provide us with members of their pastoral care teams.
They would be given supervision and assessment and when they went back to their churches they would know they had been through that. We run ordinands training here every year and that is very popular, running across the denominations and traditions. The people who come on our courses learn listening skills as well as recognising spiritual needs and dealing with spiritual distress.
‘Part of our work here is evaluating what is most useful. It’s working out how we can provide spiritual care when the physical condition may put restrictions on people. You need brevity – short set prayers can be helpful and sometimes it’s just about sitting and holding a person’s hand. You need to use the language suitable for people who have never been to church. Religious language doesn’t mean anything to them.’
Janet Proudman, a member of SS Mary and John, Cowley, Oxford, is a hospital visitor who, thanks to the training she has had at the hospital, leads a healing team for her church. Janet, who has been a Licensed Lay Minister for 19 years, says: ‘ I have worked in a clinical role, as an academic nutritionist at Oxford Brookes. My background means I’m comfortable with hospitals and patients and it is a great privilege to be able to work with patients in this way.’
Berkshire:
AT the Royal Berkshire Hospital the Revd Michael Sserunkuma heads up an ecumenical, multi-faith chaplaincy. Christian denominations along with Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists are represented by his team of chaplains and volunteers.
He says: ‘Visiting patients is crucial to our work because that’s when we get to know people and can work out what we can offer them. ‘People working here constantly meet people who are at their most vulnerable point, experiencing things they might not have expected. They might not be in a position to work out how to move forward with the realities of their experience. Our work is to engage with the human being to help them cope with their experience of illness. It’s important to remember that in this encounter, God is there and we know he is.’
He called on Christians to help patients who may have come into contact with chaplaincy services and as a result want to find a church once they leave the hospital.
He says: ‘One little prayer of ours is that when people have come into contact with us and they haven’t been to church for a long time, or at all, they would be able to find a church that will welcome them. We would ask church goers to pray for that and to collaborate in that ministry.’
Buckinghamshire:
THE ministry of chaplaincy visitors within Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust is a valued part of patient care, writes The Revd Susan Blagden, Chaplain for Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust. On average the fifty visitors’ combined hours of work equate to a full time chaplain on each of the two main sites, Wycombe Hospital and Stoke Mandeville Hospital. They each draw on life skills which may have been acquired through teaching, nursing, licensed lay ministry, counselling, family, and administration. A good sense of humour is a pre-requisite.
A chaplaincy visitor will spend at least a couple of hours each week visiting their allocated ward providing excellent pastoral care listening attentively to patients’ stories, helping them find their own meaning in what is happening to them.
It is a rewarding but demanding environment in which to work. It can be tiring to listen at depth but such attentive listening brings its own encouragement as patients discover their own answers to some of the questions which concern them. Such skilled listening will usually
help the patient name that which is most
important rather than that which is the most obvious!
Sometimes there are particular faith issues that need to be articulated and in an ecumenical setting there can occasionally be some challenging questions to explore. In a culture where spirituality is common but religious affiliation less so, it is always a privilege to be asked to pray with a patient.
Other chaplaincy visitors, given permission by the Bishop, take the reserved sacrament to patients on the ward. This is greatly appreciated by those unable to get to the hospital service. Still other chaplaincy volunteers come in on a Sunday to collect patients and bring them to the hospital service.
As a chaplaincy team we commit to ongoing training and regular reflection on practice. If it is the right role for you it can be very rewarding. Several of our volunteers have been doing it for many years, most do it for four or five years before they find that their own circumstances change. In increasingly short stays in hospital the chaplaincy visitors help to increase the provision of effective spiritual care across the Trust and the chaplains value the constancy of ward visiting which they provide.
Who to contact:
Oxford and Banbury:
The Revd Phil Sutton
01865 221732 or
01295 229104
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Milton Keynes:
Revd Carole Hough
01908 243700
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Wycombe Hospital:
The Revd John Lawrence
01494 425072
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Royal Berkshire Hospital:
Revd Michael Sserunkuma
0118 322 7105
michael.sserunkuma@
royalberkshire.nhs.uk
Stoke Mandeville:
Revd Susan Blagden
01296 316675
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