Parish and hospital: a unique partnership

Parish and hospital: a unique partnership

Sometimes, hospital patients need more than medicine.

"You kind of look at them and say, 'I bet you need a hug today,'" said Frances Raeder, a eucharistic minister from St. Mary's parish in Cooperstown who volunteers at the area's Bassett Medical Center. "It's just a feeling you get."

She and about 25 other ministers highlight a special role that the parish plays with the hospital in today's changing healthcare system. Another aspect is that Bassett's chaplain, a Presbyterian, attends St. Mary's and collaborates with its pastor, Rev. John Rosson, to best serve patients.

From fetching water and blankets, to flagging down nurses, to lending an ear or a comforting embrace, Mrs. Raeder and others exceed the typical role of eucharistic ministers.

St. Mary's volunteers pray with patients and bring them requested religious items, like rosaries and pictures of the Sacred Heart. And, of course, they bring communion to thousands of patients - more than 1,500 last year alone - and hundreds of their relatives each year.

Connections
But the atmosphere in Cooperstown demands something more. Bassett is one of six hospitals in the Bassett Healthcare Network, which covers 5,600 square miles in eight rural counties. Bassett Medical Center, a teaching hospital, often deploys its 260 staff physicians to community health centers to visit patients.

Other patients may travel up to an hour - from as far away as Sullivan County - for the trauma, cardiology and cancer care in which the Cooperstown site specializes.

Because of that distance, families can't always make the trip to visit loved ones.

"We just sit and talk" with patients, Mrs. Raeder explains. "We're an outlet for their fears, too."

She carries 15 hosts as she visits an average of 28 patients each Thursday. About 140 patients walk through the hospital's doors every day.

"I think they're lonely," agreed Cathy Coleman, another longtime St. Mary's minister. She spends time with between 15 and 40 patients a week. Parish volunteers collaborate to be at Bassett almost every day of the year.

Question of faith
The volunteers also confront widespread secularism. Though Catholicism is the largest identified faith among Cooperstown patients, the next largest group lists no religious affiliation at all.

"I feel very sad when I meet somebody and they say, 'I don't need God,'" Mrs. Raeder said. She often tells these patients to pray to her "friend" St. Jude, the patron saint of those in need.

St. Mary's parish also provides a spiritual home to Bassett's chaplain, Rev. Betsy Jay, a Presbyterian minister who attends services at the Catholic church.

At the hospital, Rev. Jay visited 1,539 patients in 2009. While she can't offer Catholic patients communion, reconciliation or the sacrament of anointing of the sick, she can baptize them and give communion to Protestant Christians.

She also distributes ashes in the hospital chapel on Ash Wednesday, as well as palms on Palm Sunday.

Tag-team
Rev. Jay calls Father Rosson when a patient wants reconciliation or anointing. Father Rosson anoints 175 patients a year and says Mass at the chapel monthly - weekly during Lent.

Father Rosson and St. Mary's volunteers praise Rev. Jay for showing them the ropes and encouraging dialogue among Catholic and other clergy. For instance, Rev. Jay hosts clergy breakfasts four times a year, covering topics like healthcare reform, dementia and end-of-life care.

Rev. Jay said her own faith journey makes her sensitive to other religions. She was raised a Methodist, participated in an ecumenical Presbyterian and Catholic faith group in her youth and took courses at a Jesuit school and a Lutheran school in seminary.

Before becoming ordained in 1981, she counseled people affected by crises.

Across spectrum
Indeed, Cooperstown and the surrounding areas are home to various denominations of Christians, as well as Jews, Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists.

"I think you begin with respect for where people are," Rev. Jay said. "What I see as part of my call is one of offering peace, compassion and dignity."

Dignity is especially important at the end of a patient's life, she said, something she witnesses a few times a week.

Overall, patients "are people of remarkable courage and faith and patience - very resilient," she said. "I feel grateful to be able to be a part of their journeys for a short time."

Mrs. Raeder, one of the volunteers, agrees that being a part of patients' lives is a privilege.

"It just makes me feel full," she said. "It's a completion of personality."

(07/15/10)