Need ideas on getting a hospital chaplain to stop trying to talk to atheist inpatient.

[eShirl]

as if being sick in the hospital isn't bad enough, creepy freak goes to talk to him after first being asked by me nicely, then firmly, then emphatically that he doesn't want any contact with chaplains at the hospital. poor guy is sick as a dog and she goes in anyway when I'm gone, after being told it will upset him and he doesn't need it

so pissed right now


edit to add: also exhausted, so I'll check this thread in the morning after I get some sleep.

thanks for reading my vet/rant/question/thing

[elleng]

1. Speak with nurses at nursing station,

ask to speak with 'social work' type, and state emphatically that they/she MUST NOT do so.

Not necessary to do any more than a mild request @ DC's Catholic Georgetown University Hospital. AWFUL that she would disregard. Maybe discuss w his docs, and tell THEM to DEMAND?

SORRY



Recently did 'similar,' when husband wanted to know if they had available 'living will.' Asked staff to see to it that chaplain NOT respond, but rather social services type. They complied, willingly.

[SwissTony]

4. My first reaction, too.

Nursing staff, in my experience, are very protective of patients. If something or someone is making a patient uncomfortable, they will do their best to remove or minimise the problem.

[sigmasix]

2. this seems like a hippa violation

Unless the patient lists the house priest as one of the people that are allowed to receive ANY medical, emotional and social diagnoses. I'm sure you friend never okayed the release of her Hippa rights to the priest. You could bring up the hippa concerns involved when the preist barges-in on patients and doctors sharing personal information, in a room they have been been told more than once to leavem be.

[Locut0s]

3. As a fellow atheist this makes me mad...

As sigmasix said, surely you can bring this up to the hospital as some form of violation of patient rights. If I were the one there I would start a loud and very angry argument with the chaplain about the benefits of atheist over religion. I'm NOT a "proselytizing" atheist by nature. I think everyone should be free to think what they want so long as it doesn't interfere with the rights of others. But in this case I think I would make an exception.

[Chan790]

5. He needs to say so.

Whether to her, the nurses or his doctor (note that you're not in that list); he has to say he doesn't want to speak to the chaplain.

The problem arises because the patient tells you they don't want to speak to the chaplain, you tell the chaplain, the chaplain pops her head in and asks the patient directly (which they can and in many hospitals are supposed to do in this circumstance to confirm the patient's wants/needs) and the patient for whatever reason says they would like the company. Now the chaplain sees you as misrepresenting the spiritual/visitation wants of the patient.

She sounds like the type who is not going to listen to it from anybody but him anyway and if she's a hospital chaplain she's going to know the rules well enough regarding what she and cannot do and that it's his expressed wishes (not yours) that must be respected, that hospital administration isn't going to act without him saying anything. Ultimately, either to her or to the nurses or both, he has to express his desire not to talk to her.

Until then, misguided as it is, even if she's not trying to minister to him, she's going to think that visiting inpatients who, by assumption must be lonely, bored and grateful for company and conversation is an act of charity and mercy even when it does nothing but annoy the patient. (I've known chaplains and religiously-motivated hospital volunteers of this sort before. I get the dull-persistence of their thinking.) She's probably confused and thinks very poorly of you that you're trying to deprive him of companionship through what must be a lonely and difficult time.

Annoying persistent gits, aren't they.

[dr.strangelove]

6. Unless you are the person's health care proxy, your comments mean little

The person, or their health care proxy, need to inform the hospital that they do not want to allow that person to visit them. Type out a memo to the hospital president (can find the info on the wen site or with a google search) and cc: the treating hospitalist and the head nurse of the floor. Have the person sign it and then mail it and hand deliver it. That should get the attention that this needs. but it has to come from the patient or the proxy.

[eShirl]

7. post-sleep thought: possibility she didn't realize until after-the fact, the patient she talked to

was the person I had previously asked her to NOT talk to.

I'll try to give a succinct synopsis. My discussion with the chaplain happened in a different section of the hospital, where I was with a 2nd family member who also happens to be a patient. I didn't have a problem with her talking to patient 2, and when I was leaving to check on family member patient 1 she offered to come talk to him as well. Told her I wished she wouldn't, he doesn't like talking to chaplains, priests, etc.

She continued to offer, using different reasons why talking to him might be beneficial or comforting to him somehow anyway, necessitating increasingly firm and emphatic explanations that he did not want it, had previously asked me to prevent chaplains from even talking to him if I could, and that rather than being a comfort it would make him angry and upset. I warned her if she did try to talk to him, he would tell her to leave and that if she didn't he would get increasingly loud, angry and insulting until she did leave. (I've seen him do it in the past.) I thought that might have finally gotten through to her, and I left.

A few hours later as I'm making my way to my atheist family member's room, she comes up to me in the hall and says, "Hi, I talked with your (family member I had asked her not to)." I'm like WHAT?!?!?!?!?! inside, and said LOUDLY so other people could hear, "After I specifically asked you NOT to talk to him??" And she said yes. It was kind of a blur after that, but she wasn't particularly defensive, apologetic, or explanatory, just quietish and with the same sad, verge-of-crying expression she seems always to be wearing.

Anyway, it occurs to me that perhaps, PERHAPS, she was just making her introductory, we're-hear-if-you-want-to-talk-and-the-chapel-is-that-way rounds of that hospital wing, and didn't realize until after the fact that she had talked to someone she had been asked not to talk to. It's either that, or she's some kind of pushy religious narcissist who shouldn't have access to the captive audience of a hospital full of sick people. I will give her the benefit of the doubt for now.



I've taken too long writing this already.
Thank you to all who read and responded to my OP; venting last night helped be able to get some sleep.

[TrogL]

12. Some religious types are incapable of grasping they may be doing harm

Typical excuses:

-I'm saving souls
-it's just talk, not prayer
-what harm could it do
-it's the Lord's work

Generally the only way to shut them down is intimidation and legal action. In a Catholic Hospital, this may be impossible. It's religious by nature.

Papers were likely signed on admittance. Find out if there's anything on there, or hospital policy in general.

[whistler162]

8. Oh no a person talked to another person!

Did the chaplain talk religion or just <horrors> talk to the patient? Do you know or do you just assume that a chaplain will talk religion!

[eShirl]

10. fuck off

n/t

[Major Nikon]

14. Are you honestly trying to suggest that the hospital chaplain's motives are not to proselytize?

[AngryOldDem]

16. It's been my experience that they don't.

They come in, try to make small talk, and offer to say a prayer or give Communion if you want it. If you decline -- as I did -- they wish you a good day and move on.

This person, however, seems like a special case who can't pick up on the cues that her visits aren't wanted, so therefore the point has to be made more forcefully.

[Major Nikon]

18. Your experience doesn't match the description in the OP

[AngryOldDem]

24. Seems to me that it's the chaplain who is the exception to the rule.

With most, if you don't want them stopping by, they won't. Most are savvy enough to know not to push it.

[Major Nikon]

25. That's because hospitals routinely run off those who proselytize too much

But I've heard plenty of stories about those who push it so I don't believe it's all that rare. Those who pander religion often target people when they are at their weakest. Children are targeted aggressively for the same reasons. That's why school prayer is such a big issue with the right wing.

[madmom]

26. If the patient doesn't want him/her there, does it really matter what they talked about?

In a hospital it all about the patient, not the visitor, whomever it may be!

[Lars39]

9. When admitted, did your husband specify

who was allowed to know he was in the hospital? If he did, and that chaplain wasn't on the list or requested by the patient, the chaplain committed a HIPPA violation.

[Myrina]

11. Catholic hospital?

If so, you may be SOL. They pretty much run rampant in St. Whatever facilities.

When I was in waiting for outpt surgery last year, at a 'normal' hospital, the chaplain poked his head in & asked if I wanted to 'talk' before they put me under & I said 'no, I'm fine thanks' and he just smiled & moved along.

Maybe it will take your husband to tell her himself that he's not religious and would rather be left alone.

[uppityperson]

21. Well, don't know what to say to that. Welcome to DU?

[agracie]

22. Best post of the day... a real DUzy !

[AngryOldDem]

15. Tell the chaplain directly, go to whoever's in charge of her, or tell the nurses she's off limits.

Surely something can be done.

[MADem]

17. I've never had a problem getting a chaplain to leave. "Thanks but no thanks" has always worked.

The patient needs to do the lifting here--I don't want any counselling, thanks anyway, should do it. Is the patient unable to communicate?

If that's the case, the primary next of kin needs to ask the nurses to put a Do Not Disturb, Chaplain notation in his record and speak with the chaplain.

The chaplains-- in most hospitals that have them-- have, as their charge, a duty to offer their services to the patient, and the patient can, of course, say no.

But you are not the patient, and for all the chaplain knows, you could be some atheist crank stranger doing a Wave Off when there's a devout Orthodox Catholic behind the curtain.

Again, the patient has to just say "Thanks but NO." That will do it. He or she cannot take YOUR word for it, because, unless you are next of kin, you have no authority.

[Scuba]

19. Don't dump this on the nurses. Their job is caregiving, not supervising the Chaplains. Talk to ...

... an omnsbudsman if there is one, or to someone in administration if not.

[Orrex]

20. Tell them that you're going to bill them $10,000 each time the chaplain pesters him.

[Bertha Venation]

23. Scream in his face, with witnesses, spittle flying

Tell staff chaplain she is not welcome.

Tell chaplain that this is not the persecution of which the bible has foretold.

Tell chaplain -- if she would've liked someone telling her, on her sickbed, if she would like someone preaching atheism to her.

If none of that works -- I'm sorry, I wish I had more. Best, very best wishes to you.

[840high]

27. The patient needs to

speak up.

[RedCloud]

28. Explain how Hercules had his titles of adoration ripped off.

That even keeps the Jehovah witnesses away. Damned plagiarists!

[u4ic]

29. Talk to their supervisor

I have two friends who do similar work. One is a Unitarian and an atheist, the other is a Buddhist but under the term 'spiritual counsellor' at the hospital. Yet their jobs have nothing to do with religion, just to listen and provide counselling services for those who are ill and may want and/or need support.

If they're pushing religion on them, that's a different story. In our hospitals up here (Canada), we have denominational chaplains as well as non-denominational ones. It may be different where you are.

[Recursion]

30. That's sad. All the military chaplains I knew were great with atheists

But that's a self-selected group of people, too.