New Steps

From previous WHCT Chair – Margaret Rowe

In 2010 a separate Trust was set up within the original in memory of Jim Rowe, with special provision for donations made to remember him and his commitment to the chaplaincy service at Wellington Hospital.

The Trust’s vision has moved from “weathering the crisis” to “ensuring a sustainable service”. Our present reserves are enough to sustain 12 months of a worst case scenario. Further fundraising is a priority, with the aim of achieving around $20,000 pa to provide continuity into the future.

We have established a website to provide a point of contact for those hundreds of people who value the chaplaincy service but are not linked to church communities.

We are exploring a graduate research project into quantifying the role of chaplaincy as a partner in hospital healing and reconciliation, something intuitively understood but not yet adequately explored.

We also provide tangible community support – and a listening post – to our chaplains, who attend each Board meeting. The Trust also connects with hospital management, in the person of Jen Boryer, Capital and Coast’s manager of community services.

Our commitment

We’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, please continue your generous help to ensure the chaplaincy service at the hospital survives and grows. Board members are very clear that whatever shape the hospital system develops, there will always be vulnerable people within it who will benefit from the quiet support of the chaplaincy service. Please join with us in making sure it’s there, whenever and wherever needed, 24 hours a day.

WHCT Funds

Annual payments under current trends are around $15,000. This figure is likely to rise to around $20,000 – more if the LSP option is taken (see below).

The ICHC (Interchurch Council for Hospital Chaplaincy) organises an annual appeal for chaplaincy support through local churches commencing end September. Funds raised are distributed back to local chaplains where requested. This is the largest contributor to WHCT funds. Therefore WHCT urges supporters to contribute to the ICHC appeal over the coming months.

The Wellington Hospital Chaplaincy Trust is counting on your support to help maintain this service by:

  • Volunteering to become a Chaplaincy Assistant.
  • Making a donation to the Wellington Hospital Chaplaincy Trust. It is a registered charity: donations of $5 and over are tax deductible.
  • Leaving a bequest or gift in your will to the Wellington Hospital Chaplaincy Trust.

For how to show your support – follow the link:   Support Us  >

 

The accepted official pattern of chaplaincy support is through Local Support Providers (LSP’s), locally-based ecumenical committees providing financial and pastoral support to chaplains in each District Health Board. LSP’s are based on DHB boundaries. Adjacent DHBs, eg Capital Coast and Hutt, may share an LSP.

Neither Capital Coast nor Hutt has had a functioning LSP for over a decade. Administrative support to local chaplains is provided by DHB staff. WHCT’s active role is Wellington Hospital-based and has been principally Anglican.

A question before us is whether the WHCT might move more towards being an LSP.

Such a move would:

  • Extend WHCT’s perspectives and support roles to Porirua/Kapiti;
  • Extend WHCT perspectives and membership to a wider ecumenical base;
  • Require (and enable) wider funding support;
  • Lead us on to the question of supporting Hutt chaplaincy as well, or at least establishing contact with Hutt.

WHCT will prayerfully develop these options over the coming months. Any supporter feedback is welcome.

From Rev David Tannock, Chaplain, Wellington Hospital

The chaplaincy team at Wellington Hospital includes two full-time chaplains, two half-time chaplains, and a team of 16 voluntary assistants. The team covers most of the commonest Christian churches, but there are a large number of smaller faith communities in Wellington not represented on the team. So we have a list of on-call people from all the faith communities we have been able to identify, Christian and non-Christian.

The experience of being a hospital patient impacts on people’s spirituality regardless of creed. When patients come into hospital, they come in as complete human beings and it is their whole being which is involved. We are not tractors which can come into the mechanic’s garage, have some new parts put in and a bit of attention to the old ones, then go out again.

A large proportion of patients, as in western society generally, have no religious practices or beliefs. But these people often have a strong spirituality, and in hospital they can be confronted by huge needs. They may be a young couple facing the withdrawal of life support from a new-born baby, a mother who has a family to care for, or an older person knowing they face the imminence of death.

The most important thing a chaplain can do is listen. A lot of our time is spent just going around from patient to patient, talking about all manner of things. In this way, we establish contact with people and learn about them. Patients are also making decisions about whether the chaplain can be trusted. People will never entrust themselves at any deep level to someone unknown and untested. There are many people with whom we chaplains become involved on a surface level. Then the relationship develops and the patient talks about the deeper things going on. This pattern happens time and again.

Times of letting go are very important. The traditional prayers at the time of death have evolved over a long period of time and reflect the universality of the experience of death. They are also flexible enough to express the particularities of this unique death. In the face of death, it is the ritual of prayers and other actions which help both patient and family to move forward and find healing. Often these rituals are traditional things, like baptism, anointing, and communion. I recall a case in which the really important ritual the family needed to have at the particular time of loss was a marriage. People who do not have a traditional faith also want important moments to be marked with dignity – the withdrawal of life-support from a patient is not just a technological process. Marking the moment with dignity usually requires a prayer and often requires a ritual.

Having a chaplain present in the hospital knowing the system and on-site to get to know the patients as well as possible in what is often a very short time, is essential to making important rituals like these happen at the right times. These are a fundamental part of the healing process.

One day one of our voluntary assistants, who worked in the orthopedic ward, was making her rounds when she came across a patient who was very hungry and desperately wanted some fish and chips. He was so insistent that she went off and bought some. As she was carrying them back she wondered if she should really be doing this, but contented herself with the thought that she “was bringing Jesus his fish and chips”. This expresses the basic spirituality of chaplaincy work – in visiting patients or staff we are visiting Jesus; each person is can incarnation of the divine. So every time we visit someone we are standing on holy ground. It is our task to be there and to accompany each person on his or her journey.

Occasionally people ask us if we have saved anyone, or been involved in any miracles. For me, that is not what we are about. Instead, we seek to understand God’s agenda and discover the peace which comes from following it.

Everything the hospital chaplain does is done within the full glare of an incredibly accomplished and very able group of health professionals. There are no secrets in a hospital and the chaplain has none of the props which the parish clergy can call upon. Pastoral and spiritual care is given in a context in which they have to take their place as one discipline among others, contributing to healing the whole person.

When pastoral and spiritual care show they can contribute then hospital chaplaincy becomes an effective and important part of the Church’s overall mission. It helps the Church itself to learn and demonstrate the difficult art of existing and contributing constructively to and within a secular environment. It is emphatically part of the Church’s mission in the world.