When was the last time you held someone’s hand? On one beautiful morning, as I was setting up for the celebration of the noon Mass in the hospital chapel, three visitors came in and sat down quietly. I noticed that they were holding hands. 

After a few moments, I went up to them, introduced myself and asked them how I could help them.  The visitors tearfully told me about their relative Joseph who had just been brought into the hospital with a life-threatening sickness. They shared with me of their sadness and their fears for Joseph. They told me that they had come to the chapel “to pray to God for help.” Then they asked me if I would like to pray with them. 

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We held hands and prayed. After the prayer, they thanked me, wiped away their tears and left the chapel. 

When we talk about hospital ministry, we think about the ministry to the sick. However, this story gives us an insight into the ministry to visitors to the hospital. Everyday, I encounter visitors — family members and friends — who travel from different parts of the country and from other countries to offer support to their loved ones. Providing care to the sick comes with all sorts of emotions: fear, sadness, loneliness, anxiety, worry, exhaustion, nervousness, anger, frustration, guilt and shame. As a hospital priest-chaplain, I offer emotional and spiritual support to those visitors who may need help. 

So, how do I do this? 

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In my interaction with visitors, I try to create an environment of mutual trust between us, an environment in which they can talk about their experience of caring for a loved one. I have heard a first time visitor to the Intensive Care Unit say: “I am scared to see my friend surrounded by so many machines and with a tube in his mouth.” I have also heard visitors say “I feel exhausted when I get home from the hospital,” “I wish I could have done more for Frank” and “I am so frustrated that things have not gone as we had first thought.” 

For visitors who spend a lot of time in the hospital or in situations when the patient is unconscious or dying, these feelings may be strong enough to exert a significant impact on their lives. In some instances, some visitors may act based on their feelings especially feelings of anger, frustration, fear and sadness. By having emotional and spiritual support available these visitors feel they are not alone and are comforted. 

For visitors who are religious, religious practices of the faith such as praying, Biblical reading and the celebration of the sacraments can provide spiritual support. I remember a family member telling me that praying helps him “see God as the one in control of things” and that brings calmness. Visitors have told me that the celebration of the Anointing of the Sick for their loved one is a source of  “peace and hope.” 

I have learned that family members and friends advocate on behalf of their loved ones who are incoherent, unconscious or dying. I encountered two family members of Grace, a dying patient. They no longer practise the faith but Grace “went to Mass every Sunday until she got sick” so they wanted Grace to receive the end-of-life care based on the Church’s teaching. 

In such situations, I become a resource to visitors about the Church’s teaching on end-of-life issues: organ donation, dignity of palliative care, withdrawal of life support system and medical assistance in dying (MAiD).  As with Grace’s family, when visitors understand these issues, they make decisions based on the faith of the person, which can bring them comfort and peace. When death occurs in the hospital, I visit the bereaved family to pray with them as a source of comfort.

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Visiting the sick is a Gospel way of life, the life that Jesus Himself taught us (Matthew 25:35-40). It is a corporal act of mercy and it symbolizes God’s compassion, care and healing to the sick and the suffering. However, visiting people in hospital can also be stressful especially in a trauma hospital like St. Michael’s. When we as a community support each other, no one feels alone and we all move together revealing God’s compassion and love in the hospital community. 

(Fr. Yaw Acheampong is priest-chaplain at St. Michael’s Hospital.)