Swiss Chaplaincy - a broad spectrum

Different Voices of Chaplaincy in Switzerland*

From Marlène Inauen, lic. phil.
Hospital Chaplain, University Hospital, Zurich

For 23 years I worked at the City Hospital Triemli, the last ten years as head of the Catholic chaplaincy team. During this time I focused especially on the care of dying cancer patients and on a unit for gynaecology, birth, social support and children’s home for mothers in difficulties. Furthermore, in close co-operation with the Protestant team, I participated in the interdisciplinary bioethics committee and led different groups of volunteers, especially one, whose members are willing to spend two nights a month with dying patients.

In January 2008, I changed to the University Hospital of Zurich. Now I am a member of a team of seven chaplains, and assigned to a unit of intensive care and neuro-surgery and other units of heart and visceral surgery. At the University Hospital interdisciplinary work is developed, the chaplaincy is well integrated. Perceiving the actual needs of patients, families and staff is important.

The church in the canton of Zurich has made a great effort for restructuring chaplaincy and for assessing the needs. Now, to every hospital, also in the countryside, qualified spiritual care givers are assigned. A leader of all Catholic hospital chaplains has been chosen.

Lay hospital chaplains – men and women – have become a majority, the few priests being assigned mostly to parishes. The denominational influence has diminished; many patients have no link to the churches.

For many years I have been a member of the board of the Association of the Swiss Catholic German-speaking Hospital Chaplains. I participated in elaborating ecumenical guidelines for Swiss Hospital Chaplaincy. In the meantime we are concerned with questions of quality and with studies.

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Development in the next years:

The impact of organisations gathering members who want to be assisted with possible suicide is still great. Discussions are widespread in the newspapers especially when these organisations cause “tourist suicide” – people coming to Switzerland for assisted death. In Zurich the nursing homes are allowed to admit organisations for assisted suicide, when a resident has no longer a home-address (argument of justice for all). The hospitals demand that they return home. When the University Hospital in Lausanne defined criteria for assisted suicide within the hospital, the mass media spread the news emphasizing the new freedom – the same, when the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMW) defined certain conditions for a personal decision of a physician to assist suicide.

Palliative care has developed in Switzerland during the last years and is structured as an interdisciplinary movement, known also by political authorities. For the future it seems important to me that chaplains get in closer contact with this movement. Until now only a few chaplains participate actively within, and psychologists are beginning to cover the same area. Similar to physicians they use studies to prove the efficiency of their interventions, e.g. the benefit for life quality.

As chaplains we feel the challenge to begin with studies, too, to recognize for ourselves and the medical world around us the specific qualities of our service. Our association has just taken the first steps thereto. Eventually, we will have to think about questions such as: Is assessment of hospital chaplains’ work possible? Or will there, within the management framework, be a quiet move in the direction of hospital chaplaincy fulfilling all spiritual needs of all spiritual customers? How does this fit in with God’s grace or the prophetic challenges of the Gospel?

In other areas, e.g. urgency care, some independent groups begin to introduce themselves directly to the hospitals. Paid by an annual fee, they promise assistance in need. Hospital chaplaincy is not always welcome in these care teams.

In different other areas, chaplaincy was once leading, e.g,. training seminaries for assisting the dying and the bereaved. More and more this is being offered by different groups, independent of faith or church background.

New answers to real needs were found in ecumenical memorial liturgies, inviting staff and relatives having lost a dear person in the hospital during the year, attracting and comforting many people.

Also in the area of pregnancy loss and infant death the churches (especially women chaplains), together with the hospital staff, have found an increasing attention to and a variety of rituals, liturgies, and special cemeteries to help these families in grief.

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From Audrey Kaelin, MA, MTh
Hospital Chaplain, Clinic Hirslanden Zurich

I am a Catholic theologian with Clinical Pastoral Training. The last two years I was a chaplain at the City Hospital Triemli Zurich and the Cantonal Hospital Winterthur. In both hospitals I was responsible for the volunteer group of about 40 members who are willing to spend two nights a month at the bedside of a patient who does not want to be alone. This year I started working as a chaplain at the Clinic Hirslanden Zurich.

Before my studies in Theology I worked as a college teacher for English and History, which I studied at the University of Zurich. I grew up bilingual – in the U.S.A. and Switzerland. English is my mother tongue.

The Clinic Hirslanden Zurich (260 beds) belongs to the Hirslanden Group of Private Hospitals in Switzerland. I work together with a Protestant chaplain. We both are employed by our church. We also have contact with the Jewish community.
My main tasks are:

• pastoral care in accordance with my denomination; intensive care unit
• volunteer group of about 10 members who visit patients during the day
• courses for nurses and the volunteer group
• meetings with the chaplains of the five hospitals in the area as well as with the hospital chaplains in the city of Zurich, Swiss and European network of hospital chaplains
• Member of the ecumenical cantonal committee since August 2006. The committee prepares the annual convention for hospital chaplains in canton Zurich.
• Designated board member of the Association of the Swiss Catholic German-speaking Hospital Chaplains in August 2008. The board prepares the annual convention for the German-speaking hospital chaplains of Switzerland. Successor of Marlène Inauen as representative of the Association for European Network of Health Care Chaplains (ENHCC).

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Situation of Protestant German-Speaking Health Care Chaplaincy in Switzerland

Health Care Chaplaincy in Switzerland is structured according to the local and historical situation. The structures are mostly depending on the different organisation of the churches and their specific ways of collaboration with the health care institutes. The Catholic Church is more homogenous than the very manifold field of the independent – around 25 Protestant Churches due to the 26 political unities, called Cantons (Every Swiss Canton is in fact a little autonomous state for itself with its constitution, parliament and government.). There are hardly any other denominations and religious institutions involved.

Hospital Chaplaincy is organized by the churches of the different cantons. In some cases there are associations of parishes, single parishes, foundations or the health care institutions themselves that pay and organize.

Types of Health Care Chaplaincy organisations in CH (examples):

A. Cantonal churches – pay and organize Heath Care Chaplaincy (infrastructure by the hospital):
Kantonsspital Aarau
Kantonssital Baden
Universitätsspital Basel
Kantonsspital Winthertur (contribution of the political canton through the church)
Universitätsspital Zürich (contribution of the political canton through the church)

B. Association of parishes – pay and organize Health Care Chaplaincy:
Psychiatrische Universitätsklinik Bern
Triemlispital Zürich (contribution of the political canton through the church)

C. Health care institutes – pay and organize Health Care Chaplaincy for themselves:
Spital Burgdorf, CHUV Lausanne; Inselspital Berne

D. Foundations – pay and organize it. For example: Station for Palliative Care Diakonissenwerk Bern, Inselspital Berne There are combinations and mixtures of the different structures due to the historical development.

E. Churches in collaboration with Hospitals are sharing their responsibility:
St. Gallen, CHUV Lausanne

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From Adriaan Maurits Kerkhoven
Hospital Chaplain, University Hospital Insel, Bern, Switzerland (www.insel.ch)

After completing my studies in Theology and Slavistics I did my practical formation as a pastor in both French and German. As a double citizen of the Netherlands and Switzerland I am quite used to multicultural issues. I profited from working in a bilingual parish. I had the rare possibility to work as a bilingual pastor in the politically and culturally sensitive area of Jura mountains, intermediating between the German and the French speaking population. I had several NGO activities in Eastern Europe.

As an protestant pastor I worked in a traditionally Catholic, German speaking area close to the heart of Switzerland. Before entering the University hospital of Bern I made a special training for chaplains and worked as a chaplain and director of an NGO for refugees in the Refugee Welcome Center of Basel.

I’ve been chaplain for the University hospital of Berne for two and a half years now. Our team cooperates according to the capacity of each member and his /her origin and experience. The pressure of our emergency service and the lack of human resources make us work more and more economically. I am specialised in visceral surgery patients, psychosocial matters and French speaking clients and their spirituality. I also train a group of ambitious volunteers which enriches me a lot.

I’ve become more and more aware and active in the care of the medical staff and in prevention and conflict work. I am forming me in systemic and body-psycho-therapy.

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Association of the Swiss Protestant German Speaking Hospital Chaplains (www.spitalseelsorge.ch)

History:
The association of the Swiss German speaking Hospital Chaplains has its beginnings in 1930. That year, the first “Konferenz Evangelischer Spitalpfarrer der deutschen Schweiz” took place. Thought of as a trial, the involved hospital chaplains decided to go on at the first conference.

Structure:
The association consists of about 150 members. Chaplains can join the association if they work in a health care institution and have an academic degree in theology and an additional specific formation focused on health care, spirituality and psychotherapy.

There are different fields of working: general hospitals, psychiatric clinics, nursing homes and elderly homes, rehabilitation institutes and homes for handicapped people.

Aims:
Integration of chaplaincy in health care institutions
Formation and training
Lobbying in the churches and in political organisations
Exchange and motivation (ethics)

Activities:
Organisation of annual meetings
Development of standards and quality systems
Exchange between the protestant and catholic part of the association
Ecumenical Teamwork
Promotion of the presence of Health Care Chaplaincy in the public and in institutions
Networking

Communication:
The association is autonomous, having relations with others, especially the Association of Catholic Health Care Chaplains in German Speaking Switzerland. There are contacts to the different churches and more and more to the initial academic and post-academic institutes of education.

The contacts of the protestant part of the association to the European Network of Health Care Chaplains and to the French speaking colleagues are on the way. The French Speaking have firm relations to the Canadian equals.

Important issues:
To tighten the structure and communication of the association
To develop a common standard of formation
To watch the development of healthcare in Switzerland on the level of national politics and the politics of the cantonal protestant churches.

*This article is taken from the European Network of Health Care Chaplains website: http://www.eurochaplains.org/index.htm

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