In-Demand Chaplains Adjust Their Approach DAVID LEWELLEN
T
he impact of the COVID-19 pandemic reaches far beyond sick people. Everyone is disrupted; everyone is struggling with loss and uncertainty and grief for the way things used to be. In the health care universe, the job that is best suited to treat those feelings is the chaplain, but the pandemic has forced changes in how they do their work. “We learned that we can pivot really fast,” said Mary Heintzkill, senior director of spiritual care and mission integration for Ascension Health in St. Louis. Just as physicians have learned to use tablets and Zoom to practice telehealth, telechaplaincy has gained more acceptance in the past year than it did in the previous decade. “If we hadn’t had COVID, chaplains wouldn’t be believers in this, but we’ve become believers,” Heintzkill said. “We can do really good spiritual care with an iPad or a phone.” Chaplains and their skills have been a vital aspect of the pandemic response, and their services have been in high demand. “You don’t know you need a chaplain until you need a chaplain,” said Rev. Marilyn Barnes, vice president of mission and spiritual care at Advocate Aurora in Chicago. “And right now, everyone needs a chaplain, the CEO of our company and everyone else.” While chaplains in her system are rounding to visit with patients, they consistently check in with employees, too. Barnes explained that the experienced chaplain knows to avoid general questions that may get a perfunctory response, and instead ask much more targeted questions to gauge someone’s physical or emotional state. “We don’t ask, how they are doing? It’s more how are you sleeping, what have you done for yourself, what are you grateful for, what’s keeping you up at night? We’re listening for whether something else is going on and do we need to make a referral.”
HEALTH PROGRESS
That kind of concern extends to everyone in the building. Rev. Ruth Goldthwaite, a Boise, Idahobased director of spiritual care for Trinity Health, said that amid the celebration of acute care health workers as heroes, her chaplains also cultivate relationships with housekeeping and food service employees. “We’ve made an effort to say we know this is having an impact on you and we want to be mindful of that, so that you recognize how your work is essential,” she said. “Everyone needs a sense of their importance and the integrity they bring to the work.” All eight health systems contacted for this article classified their chaplains as essential workers, who received their share of personal protective equipment and got no more than their share of furloughs, if any. Some workers have been furloughed in Advocate Aurora, which represents a merger of a secular and a Protestant-affiliated system, but chaplains have been exempt. “We need every chaplain,” Barnes said. At Trinity, part of being essential means being on-site, but some chaplains also have an opportunity to minister via phone calls and video. “We’re rethinking how to be present when we were not physically present,” Goldthwaite said. And spiritual care provided through a tablet is also proving effective in other situations, such as for patients in rural areas or in home care. Establishing connections by distance ministry is essential for another reason. Relatives are most-
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