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'This is what I'm created to do' | Hospital chaplains recount their experiences helping staff, patients and families

"It can bring a sense of relief to the, to the family knowing that somebody ... a live person is in there holding a hand."

TEXAS, USA — Like many, the role of a hospital chaplain has shifted since the start of the pandemic. 

KVUE spoke with two Baylor Scott & White chaplains about their roles and how the pandemic has impacted them.

"I think there's a lot of misconception of what a chaplain actually does in the hospital," Eric Hammer said. "We do provide religious support, but our primary support is spiritual, ensuring that the patient's emotional and spiritual needs are met and that they have the ability to cope while in the hospital when their world is turned upside down."

Hammer has been a staff chaplain for 20 years and has been with Baylor Scott & White for five years. Penny Seay is the chaplain at Baylor Scott & White McLane Children's and has been there a little over a year and a half. 

"This is what I'm created to do," Hammer said. "I would not do anything else with my life. If I won the lottery, I'd still come into work tomorrow."

How has your job changed since the pandemic?

Hammer: "Before the pandemic, our primary focus was on patients and their family members, providing support, helping to promote resilience. But because of the changes in the visitation policy, because [of] the higher stress level and the anxiety level among staff, our focus of ministry shifted toward providing support to staff and helping them cope during this time. It can be a very anxious thing working in an environment where you're more than likely to be exposed to the COVID-19 virus and especially those who are working in the COVID units."

Seay: "And there are parents working in the hospital. And, especially in the early days, they were really juggling school and children and child care and what was safe, what was not safe and kind of being inundated with information at work and then trying to take that home and translate it. So, we – I've also done a lot more a lot of the staff support as well. And just being there, being present, being available to them when there are things they want to talk about."

Do you all ever feel like you're substitute family members with the visitation policy changes?

Hammer: "Yeah, sure ... I remember one of our very first COVID patients that we had. We had someone go in and visit them, and they said, 'You know what? I know I'm in isolation, but I'm feeling isolated.' And that's when we became much more intentional visiting these patients because they're scared and they're alone and they're at a higher risk for spiritual distress or a higher risk for feelings of isolation and aloneness. 

And sometimes we go in just to provide a presence. We provide just companionship and someone who they can talk to, share their fears with and also act as a liaison between them and the family. Many times I get phone calls from family members asking, 'Hey, can you go in and pray for our loved one or can you just go speak to them?' And when I say, 'I can go in, I can hold their hand,' you can just hear the emotion in their voice saying, 'Thank you so much for doing that.'"

What has it meant to you to be that "stand-in" family member?

Hammer: "Wow ... It's a very sacred moment where you can be the voice of the patient to the family sometimes or the voice of the family to the patient when they're unable to communicate with them. It brings a sense of relief to the patient. It can bring a sense of relief to the, to the family knowing that somebody – a person, not just on a video, not just on a phone – but a live person is in there holding a hand, speaking to them and offering comfort and compassion during a very difficult time."

Seay: "I feel very honored that I am sharing those times with those families and those, and these patients and that I can be of some comfort to them, even though I may not be the person they really want to be there. I am still a person who's there deeply listening and trying to provide that support."

Credit: Baylor Scott & White

How are you all helping the hospital staff?

Hammer: "One of the things that we are intentional about is adding value-supporting activities to ensure that staff feel like that they are noticed, that they are affirmed in what they do. We do things where we create a space that they can leave the floor, leave their unit just to decompress, to take a pause in their shift, someone who they can talk to during that time. We do a blessing of the hands to let them know that the work they do is a sacred vocation and to reaffirm that call that's on them. And we attend morning and evening meetings providing support to staff who are leaving shift, who are coming on to shift. We're collaborating with leaders to find out ways we can support their staff at a greater level. 

And so, we're doing a lot in order to help staff cope with this, with this terrible pandemic and with their own anxieties. And I mean, one of the biggest fears is they're working here in the hospital. What are they taking home to their kids? And helping them talk about those things can, can help them name those fears and find some, some sort of resilience in the middle of it all."

Seay: "I really am able to get on to all the floors every day and speak to the nurses and the respiratory therapist and the doctors and the residents go into the E.D. and really talk to those staff. And just by being there, they do tend to open up about the things that they're really deeply worried about in terms of the things that Eric has said, taking this home to their families and just managing their own extended families, dealing with their family members who perhaps have gotten sick and how they're managing all of that. 

So, it really is something that's just very life-giving, I think just to be there to listen and to say, 'Yeah, this is a hard thing that we're all going through and we're going through it together'. And so, we just try to keep it together and to keep going on."

WATCH: The COVID-19 pandemic through a doctor's eyes

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