Chairperson’s Christmas message 2 Ministry’s holiday greetings 3-13
PERIODICAL RATE PUBLICATION
DECEMBER15, 15,2019 2021 VOLUME VOLUME 35, 37, NUMBER 20 DECEMBER 22
Ministry providers aim to delight, honor employees this Christmastime Some facilities are reviving traditions put on hold in 2020 By JULIE MINDA
Ministry leaders are hoping that the fun and merrymaking of the holiday season will lift the spirits of pandemic-weary clinicians and staff. Chuck Prosper, chief executive of PeaceHealth’s Northwest Network, says, “These last 20 months have been incredibly challenging for our caregivers. They have given so much of themselves. We have worked closely with our spiritual care and human resources teams to support our caregivers in multiple ways, and we agreed this year that it’s more important than ever to find meaningful ways to connect with each other — safely — over the holidays.” He is among a sampling of ministry leaders who tell Catholic Health World that their desire is that the gifts, celebrations, feasts and frivolities — plus some well-deserved respite — will begin to rejuvenate employees who have been tested over the course of the pandemic. Prosper says, “There’s a return to traditions and renewed hope as we safely gather with friends and family. I think our caregivers, like many other frontline workers, are recognizing that COVID is likely to be with us for some time to come, but we can adapt Continued on 16
Preschool children at the Bon Secours Family Center at Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, practice for their reenactment of the Christmas story. The pageant was open to hospital employees as part of the hospital’s Dec. 6 holiday lighting festivities.
Initiatives offer map as care providers work to build trust with underserved communities
Providence poet gives voice to COVID anguish By LISA EISENHAUER
By LISA EISENHAUER
Andie Daisley never thought of herself as a poet until the family of a patient lost to the pandemic asked her to help spread the word that “COVID is real.” As she ruminated on the request, Daisley says her thoughts took the form of verse and she wrote them down that way. The result is a stark and somber reflection about the sadness, rage and grief surrounding COVID-19 that she has witnessed and helped children cope with in her work as a child life specialist at Providence Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital in Spokane, Washington. The hospital is part of the Providence St. Joseph Health system. “It wasn’t supposed to be a poem,” Daisley says. “It was just, I kept having these thoughts going back to my interaction with this particular family who really inspired the poem, but it became so much bigger than just that family.” At least in Spokane, the poem has given voice to the pain and suffering wrought by an ongoing crisis as well as to the trauma being endured and the compassion being shown by workers like Daisley who have Continued on 13
diocese of New York, to train the church’s Eucharistic ministers to spot signs of need as they resumed home visits in the Roman Catholic parish’s racially and economically diverse section of lower Manhattan. The visits had been on hold since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Those Eucharistic ministers, their priority is bringing the Eucharist to the person,” says Sr. Mary Anne Dennehy,
Even before the Association of American Medical Colleges officially launched its Center for Health Justice this fall, the staff of the nascent center was at work on an initiative focused on trust building through community engagement. Over the summer, the center’s team led virtual workshops built around 10 “Principles of Trustworthiness.” The center says the principles, along with accompanying videos and tool kit, “were co-developed by community stakeholders as a guiding compass for organizations from any sector to demonstrate trustworthiness to their communities.” Philip M. Alberti, senior director of health equity research and policy with the Association of AmeriAlberti can Medical Colleges, is founding director of the Center for Health Justice. He says that the association started its work around trust
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Ebelise Andujar and Michael Helck of ArchCare Managed Long Term Care program give Eucharistic ministers at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in New York City advice on how to spot potential need when bringing Holy Communion to those who are homebound.
ArchCare trains Eucharistic ministers to assess fragile seniors as home visits resume By LISA EISENHAUER
As Our Lady of Sorrows Church in New York City was preparing this fall to restart its program of offering the sacrament of Holy Communion to the homebound, its pastor was aware that many of those parishioners had been isolated for the better part of two years. With that in mind, he invited ArchCare, the continuing care community of the Arch-