“Catholic healthcare is at a crossroads.” When Archbishop Miller made that statement, I believe that he was referring to the impact of the changes made to the Criminal Code to allow Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD); with the expectation by many lobby groups that Catholic health care organizations should provide this service.
Not only is our healthcare truly at a crossroads with euthanasia, we are also at a crossroads with prioritizing spiritual care in Catholic healthcare, which has been brought to light during this pandemic.
When we speak of healthcare, we must consider the whole person. While our Catholic hospitals provide world-class care for illness and injury, patients are often in and out of the hospital in a very short time. Therefore, there is not much time to focus on the psychological and spiritual aspects of a person’s health. Often the elderly are faced with conditions that require hospital intervention resulting in further limits on their mobility and frailty. They can become homebound and may need assistance going out. Sadly, this pandemic has further restricted their everyday living.
Seniors in care homes have spent 18 months without visitors. Care homes tried to arrange window visits, but this only worked for some. Some care homes also brought in computer tablets to support online visits with family, but it was never the same as being able to hug a loved one or hold a hand. Many residents with dementia lost the ability to recognize loved ones and after such a long time, their family became strangers to them. Their only connection to a person was to the staff they saw every day, and as staff have been so overworked, there has been no time to do anything with seniors but the essential physical care duties.
While their body may have been as good as could be expected with all the physical challenges, their mind and spirit have been ailing.
In Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl spoke of people in the concentration camps who lost the will to live because they saw no meaning left in their lives. We don’t have to be in such horrid circumstances to lose the will to live. For many, being with family and loved ones brings us our greatest joy. If that is lost, we may lose our sense of meaning as well. That sense of meaning is one of the most fundamental parts of our spiritual well-being. With that lost, the will to live can soon follow. Physician-assisted suicide may begin to gain appeal.
We may have lost the legal fight against MAiD but we can still fight it in the spiritual sense. We don’t have to be lawyers or doctors or clergy. We don’t need to be eloquent in convincing others of the sin that physician assisted suicide represents. We just need to be caring people who, through just being there for others, we recognize them as valued individuals sharing their life stories. Through our presence, we are showing them that being there with them is important to us and gives us meaning. Through our actions, we are showing them that they matter and are valued.
Loneliness has been shown to be a key driver to requesting MAiD. We are all able to do something about that. Join (or start) a visitation group at your parish. Find out who has been homebound or is in a care home with nobody to visit. Be a driver to take an elderly spouse to visit. And remember, a person living at home with a spouse in a care home can be just as lonely and would benefit from a visit as well.
If you would like to make a difference but aren’t sure how, speak with your pastor, Parish Council, Catholic Women’s League or Knights of Columbus to see if they would run the Spiritual Care Series, a program that offers high-quality education in pastoral and spiritual care. Learn more about the program at www.chabc.bc.ca.
Bob Breen is the executive director of the Catholic Health Association of B.C.
The B.C. Catholic is publishing stories about local health care providers, organizations, and emerging issues in anticipation of National Catholic Health Care Week Oct. 3-9. In Archbishop J. Michael Miller’s words, many medical professionals are at a crossroads. Join us in appreciating the complex world they navigate today.
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