The National Association of Catholic Chaplains



Refer to NACC website New things are being posted daily, there are many new resources to be used in your ministry.Refer to the CHA website for resources. New things are being posted daily.CHA website. – front page is a link to Corona Virus resources and Spiritual Care resources and a series of short podcasts.Chaplaincy Innovative lab Prayers from USCCB: ; Review your diocesan websites for local resources and support including on-line Masses, rosaries, and prayers. Listening Hearts are available: 4/8/20We are preparing for End of Life Care with its own building. We also work with home and assisted living facilities. We are stay at home. I work with family, grief, and anticipatory grief. We have many resources from our HC system including a book for COVID with prayers. Our music therapists are making recording to share with patients and staff.Long-Term Care with Memory Care - Everyone who is able stay in their rooms. Wanderers are supervised. I am there to offer headphones for Spiritual Care, to participate in Good Friday liturgy. It is tricky for our dementia patients. They tend to wander but we do our best. We do wear masks everywhere, gown up for room entry.Sometimes we carry messages between patients in separate facilities. We can do presence and listening without being present. It is a privilege to be that.Those in hospital services are being tested and given PPE. Sacraments can be done in ICU but no communion. Parish sick calls are done by the priest. I have funerals and can do private funeral masses though there is distancing. We and our bishops have to police ourselves. CPE program is still going on. They are often used for telechaplaincy. They take our temperature, we are given face mask, we change from street clothes into scrubs for the entire shift. We do some rounding. I sat with a spouse of someone who was dying of Cancer. We do go into some patient rooms. I also talk to them by phone. We do daily reflections for the both shifts. No visitors or non-essential staff. It is the little things that allow the staff to keep doing what they need to do. I have access to EPIC through a link at home. We can access patients through Microsoft teams. It is a secure network. We are working on other security, trying to use less paper. We are processing anticipatory fears and anxiety. We use the image that we are braced and ready to go. We are still able to do face-to-face visits. We are investigating telechaplaincy. There is some research about pre traumatic. It is good to name it.4/14/20We appreciate how chaplaincy has highlighted the need for Spiritual Care and how our members support staff. Someone already inquired about dealing with PTSD for after. What kinds of thoughts are going through chaplain minds?Preparations at the hospitals are ready. Many are working remotely. I am visiting only when it is very urgent. The hospital has restricted visitors. We may be pray outside the unit. We’re working with community and trying to put people in touch when someone is dying, connecting patient’s families with their own parishes.We are trying to be creative. Sacraments cannot be done remotely: anointing, communion, and reconciliation. The pope’s intent helped expand of this. Ritual cannot be remote. There is some Q&A around this. We are checking out NACC website for articles about sacramental practice.We pray with someone who desires the sacraments. We offer Spiritual Communion. God is not limited, meeting the heart where it is. I offered prayers with the patient in lieu of sacraments.We offer packets by faith - in Catholic packet we include mass times and televised schedule, prayer for spiritual communion and phone numbers to do telechaplaincy.Nurses are having trouble dealing with death; it is not their ministry, especially when pulled out of other medical settings where death is not anticipated. We need to support them.We need to help families deal with after death. This may be the funeral. This may be it at the bedside. We sometimes ask them to write down everything they want to say. People are saying goodbye in awkward spaces. I would love to see the parishes reach out to their members assure that they are ok to be without rituals. How do we recognize and hold these deaths to be sacred?4/14/20We closed one of our residential psych programs to allow for more beds. It’s tough because (behavioral health) patients won’t cooperate. We have 50% Covid positive. They’ve mandated shortening the time for staff to recover. Not sure what the consequences are if they delay returning to work. Facility is desperate to have staff. 24 of our residents died. That’s the other aspect, dealing with death. We mediate with family and residents, especially when dying. We try to assure that their relative did not die alone. We pray outside every patient’s room.Seeing how people are reacting to stress enforces that we need each other. We use baby monitors for actively dying, it allows for connection. We do not have high volume right now which makes me concerned. Things seem to be at a plateau. Stay at home is helping tremendously. There seems to be a swell not a surge. We are concerned over the local prisons; also of the virus popping up in homeless shelters and nursing homes. Interestingly we see that patients do better if family is fine. So we are connecting patients with their families.We use “helping hands” who are staff from other areas who are redeployed to assist in the acute care areas They are reassigned from other areas to do whatever needs doing. This will include initial visits with patients to whom they are assigned. This frees chaplains for staff support. We did End of Life recognition around the spreading virus, PPE concerns, visitation policy. We look to have a chaplain with each dying patient. We round daily, providing a blessed cross and indulgences. Priest does a blessing with eye contact; it helps make people comfortable. We reassure family members that the patient is not alone. Reassure staff that this is enough. Behavioral Health patients are difficult to place. It’s difficult to discharge after COVID – nursing home or LTC don’t want them to return or don’t have the isolated space. How do you address the need to quarantine in unhoused or dense populations? Staff support has been tricky. A physician died from COVID. I had memorial for staff outdoors. We can be cathartic, be a community?At our hospital I’m part of the allocation scarcity group for South Boston hospitals. We take 24/7 shifts to make decisions on SOFA score for scarce resources i.e. ventilators. Based on score, team would recommend comfort care vs. limited equipment.CHA is offering ethics guidance on this.There will be a great need for treatment of anxiety and PTSD. What are you doing for yourself? What should I be doing? Have a gratitude campaign, recovery, for the good work of the team. We should also be working with local clergy. They are also concerned, also isolated. Have them talk through what they are experiencing in isolated communities. There will be a need for bereavement supportWe are doing Schwartz rounds to retain compassionate care. It’s been great to get people to find it meaningful. It works for us. More staff come to rounds than a prayer service. and 4/15/20We are trying to recruit younger priests to provide Sacramental Services. We seem to be an integral part of care and are supporting environmental services. We provide Listening Sessions for supportive staff on the phone in conference calls and are shifting to ZOOM.Our words are “flux and flexibility”. We are trying to figure out how to cover staff responsibilities with flexibility and diversity. I support people/staff. Nurses who care for COVID patients cannot manage more than 4. Some nurses must do housekeeping services too.As a hospice chaplain, I do calls and send cards. These connections are so needed. People appreciate any interaction.We have been the bridge in parking lots, liaising between facilities. There’s loneliness for residents. We have done telechaplaincy but now it is so different. Transfers include Protestant and NONE patients. We are working on content for our CPE students. We are also supporting furloughed staff with phone calls, emails, etc. There are sessions with Spiritual Care and Therapists. Some are looking for a private phone call. We see this as effective.I am doing telechaplaincy and innovative chaplaincy developed for our system with the biggest challenge being to get word out that this is available. It’s a perfect service to get a hold of doctors.Spiritual Care reads a short prayer or meditation during the day. I continue to round where I can. People are so lonely.Our bishops have provided guidelines for our priests. We have moved to virtual visits and making rounds by phone. If nurse manager makes a referral then all precautions are followed. Our CPE program is ongoing with our 1-unit interns. Classes are suspended/ CPE-E requested to resume classes with ZOOM and then requested some CPE Interns to help with patient care. They are in office making phone calls, taking referrals. Referrals are passed to Chaplains. Some are brave enough to do in-person rounds and staff support.Chaplains take turns to lead sessions about emotions, offering poems, prayer, and opportunities by chat or voice. Also email support available with unit chaplain. We created grief kits including Rose Quartz Heart for patient which is then forwarded to the family. We developed certificates for blessing baptism and presence.4/16/20I hear about the deaths, especially among the memory impaired. We are unable to visit but I get the information I need. Our residents are cognitively impaired. Some can receive calls, but few respond. We are doing telechaplaincy. We explain the resources. We focus is on their comfort. Concern is starting to ramp up. We have one priest who can go in. He is carrying the load for everyone.RESOURCE: Spiritual Care within Long Term Care: Supporting those More Vulnerable during the Pandemic By Chaplaincy Innovation Lab are actively dying. The spouse or one family member can come in. Parish priest can come and do anointing. We have been fortunate to offer that to non-Covid patients. Twice a week we do small devotions standing in the lounge sharing out copies of what we are doing. No palms for Palm Sunday. But on Easter, I had flowers for everyone. I do a lot of phone calls talking to 25-30 residents a day, blessing, and prayer. I was impressed with the priest who had access, he is the chaplain assigned to the hospital by the Archdiocese.An administrator set up a mental break opportunity in the chapel with the opportunity to talk with the chaplain. People are taking advantage of this. Once a week, a chaplain can walk with someone on the grounds, keeping proper distancing. We are trying to provide a mental health break for staff.How do we talk with someone with dementia? I have patients who are confused. I try to see or to call, but calls seem to be more confusing. When I talk with them I let them bring it up. I use the same words every day to help establish a pattern. I have some that anchor their day to my words. If they see me and hear the same thing, they are calmed, it keeps them connected. It’s hard to appear calm and focused so not to spread my concern to them. ................
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