Editor’s note: In preparing this story, Xpress also reached out to Mission Health seeking comment, but while an initial contact was made, the organization ultimately did not respond to the paper’s request for an interview.
As a longtime hospital chaplain, Molly Garnett is used to navigating emotionally challenging moments.
In her job, she offers comfort to folks when they’re at their most frightened or are getting life-shattering news. She’s often present when a person is nearing the end of their own life. She prays with grieving family members and stressed hospital workers and sometimes even cries with patients.
None of that, though, quite prepared Garnett and other hospital staffers for the physical, emotional and spiritual toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken.
“The most gut-wrenching times were end-of-life situations when we had to be in full PPE, holding up iPads and seeing these devastated faces having to say goodbye,” says Garnett, the spiritual care manager at Pardee UNC Health Care in Hendersonville. “Under different end-of-life situations, they would be there with their family members, but they just couldn’t be because it’s COVID. So they’re having to do it in this sort of impersonal, remote way. And that’s gotta be really tough.”
Local chaplains — women and men who have answered the spiritual call to serve people who are at their most vulnerable and afraid — have seen their roles impacted by the global pandemic in ways large and small. That’s true for hospital chaplains like Garnett as well as those who work with law enforcement officers, crime victims and jail inmates.
And while many of the most stringent COVID-19 safety measures have gradually been lifted at hospitals and elsewhere, the pandemic’s effects are still very much with us.
“It just has not gone away,” says Garnett. “So there’s not that time to step back and recover. It’s just on and on and on and on. People are tired, and it’s hard.”
Spiritual support
Garnett, a board-certified chaplain, is considered part of the hospital’s clinical team and, as such, she must manage a wide range of responsibilities. They include assessing a patient’s spiritual needs when called upon, just as a nurse would do a physical assessment.
“We are not in the role of being a pastor or a priest or anything, because those folks represent one particular congregation of like-minded people,” she explains. “We are here for all patients, all families and all team members.”
The chaplain’s role, notes Garnett, who has a master’s degree in religious education, is to respond to the spiritual issues and needs of all of those groups, including things like fear, trust, guilt and despair. Where do people find hope? How do they find meaning in suffering?
Carol Stefaniak, Pardee’s vice president for clinical services and chief nursing officer, sounds a similar note. “Chaplains provide a listening ear and the emotional and spiritual support so important to our patients, their relatives and friends, and hospital team members. Their understanding of various religious beliefs and cultural diversity are critical components when providing spiritual care and guidance in a person’s time of need.”
During the early days of COVID-19, one of the primary responsibilities for Garnett and Pardee’s other chaplains was keeping patients connected with spiritual resources such as clergy, family members and friends when visitors weren’t allowed in the hospital.
“I did speak with as many clergy as I could to let them know that if they had someone in the hospital, I could visit on their behalf,” she recalls. As a result, Garnett ended up spending time with many of the hospital’s COVID-19 patients, even when verbal communication was difficult because the patients were wearing breathing apparatus or coughing frequently.
The pandemic has had ripple effects as well. Like hospitals across the country, Pardee has lost staff as overworked, stressed-out nurses and other team members have opted to exit the health care profession.
“It’s been hard to see folks leave, but I understand,” says Garnett. Rather than trying to talk people into staying, she emphasizes the good they’ve done for people in need.
“That means reminding them that they are still that same person who was called, that they have value and that God will use them in new ways,” she says.
Building it back up
For the Asheville Police Department, the combination of COVID-19 and the well-publicized exodus of officers — roughly 90 have left since the start of 2020 — has meant drastic changes to its chaplaincy program, which is entirely volunteer-based. The other chaplains quoted in this article are paid employees of the organizations they work with. Police Department officials say they’re confident, however, that their program is headed in the right direction.
One of a police chaplain’s main jobs is providing spiritual and emotional support for the agency’s officers, says Mark Graham, who coordinates the APD’s program. In order to provide that support, chaplains must get to know the men and women on the front lines.
“So we do what we call a ride-along, which gives us a chance to spend time with the officers in the car, ride with them for two hours, four hours, six hours, whatever we feel is appropriate,” Graham explains. As officers’ comfort level grows, they become more willing to discuss problems and concerns, whether personal or work-related.
That deepening trust also makes them more likely to involve a chaplain when called to the scene of a suicide or homicide. For the department’s chaplains, such call-outs, which often mean helping the deceased person’s family members or friends, are another key responsibility.
“This is a traumatic thing in someone’s life,” says chaplain Steve Brady. “Our job is to take the spiritual side, pray with them, whatever they want us to do to try to help them. Maybe they want us to call a family member. Maybe they want us to call the funeral home. They might ask us to go get them coffee. It doesn’t matter. We feel called to that purpose.”
But due to COVID-related safety protocols, the ride-along program was shut down for about a year, meaning chaplains haven’t had as much chance to develop relationships with newer officers. Social distancing concerns have also made officers less likely to turn to chaplains in the wake of a colleague’s death.
“So our calls have gone down drastically during COVID,” notes Graham. “We used to get two to three every month; now it’s gone down to probably one a month. Not that the suicides and fatalities have dropped. It’s just something we have to build back.”
The first step in preparing for the future is adding more chaplains. Right now, the department has four certified volunteer chaplains, including Graham and Brady. Two more are expected to be on board soon, with an ultimate target of eight.
Capt. Mike Lamb says he’s optimistic that the program will expand as COVID-19 numbers decrease. Lamb heads up the APD’s Community Engagement Division, which oversees the chaplains program. “We have a lot of folks that are reaching out and feel called to offer support to law enforcement, especially now,” he reports. And the chaplains already in the program are taking steps such as visiting the department’s resource centers and bringing snacks to help build relationships with officers.
Meanwhile, in spite of the resignations, Graham and Brady say they don’t see a morale problem within the department. Both maintain that Chief David Zack, who was hired in February 2020, is providing outstanding leadership.
“I think morale is very good, to be honest with you,” Graham observes. “So even with all of these things going against them, the officers are getting the job done, despite being short-staffed.”
Brady agrees. “We’re with these guys quite a bit, and I think it’s a new era: I think we’ve endured the difficult days, and going forward, it’s going to get better, honestly.”
Both men sing the APD’s praises and lament the negative attention nationally in the wake of the 2020 killing of George Floyd in Minnesota and the defund the police movement.
“That was so disappointing when you see things on the news, because I’m there, I’m with these guys,” says Brady. “We have some first-class officers. When everybody in the world runs away from danger, they go to it, and without them, we will be in a whole world of hurt.”
Inmate interventions
Chaplain Vanessa James helps provide spiritual guidance to almost 500 detainees at the Buncombe County Detention Facility. That includes one-on-one visits, filling requests for Bibles and other faith-based reading material, providing comfort to prisoners and their families during times of grief and leading monthly prayer services.
But all of those efforts were hindered when, at the start of the pandemic, chaplains and faith-based volunteers were barred from the facility.
“With fearful, lonely, isolated detainees and their family members, this posed a challenge,” says James, who works for the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office. The agency partners with the Asheville Buncombe Community Christian Ministry to run the chaplaincy program.
Things have slowly been returning to normal, but restrictions remain. Although chaplains can now be in the detention center, they’re still not allowed in the housing units. Instead, one-on-one visits with inmates take place in the glass-partitioned booths used by attorneys.
“As time progresses, the hope is to have the faith-based volunteers return for small group discussions, either in person or virtually,” says James, who holds a master’s in divinity from the Princeton Theological Seminary.
Throughout the pandemic, ABCCM, local churches and other groups have continued to donate faith-based materials. Inmates can submit written requests for such items, she says.
But COVID-19 hasn’t been the only challenge the detention center’s chaplains have had to deal with. Four inmates have died this year, three of them by suicide. After the most recent incident, on Nov. 19, detainees were given a chance to discuss their feelings with a chaplain one-on-one, says James. Chaplains offered support to staff and officers as well.
There have also been unsuccessful suicide attempts. Speaking about her confidential conversations with those inmates, James said, “Recently, I had the miraculous privilege of speaking with individuals who returned alive to the facility and have seen the hand of God lifting them up out of depression.”
Another key function these chaplains perform is taking phone calls from family members who ask them to inform a detainee about a loved one’s passing. “Here is where the chaplain must literally walk with the individual through the valley of the shadows of death, helping them to fear no evil and assuring them that God is with them,” she says. “Sometimes there are words; other times I must just practice being present as tears flow.”
But the most rewarding part of serving as a chaplain, she continues, comes when an inmate receives “a divine revelation” that they need to stop making excuses for their harmful choices. “The individual goes on to realize that past hurts do not excuse, justify or even pardon the charge or crime, but with the revelation, now healing, deliverance, transformation, rehabilitation and moving forward becomes a real possibility,” says James.
And despite the many challenges and heartbreaks that the work entails, particularly in the time of COVID-19, all of those interviewed by Xpress affirmed how rewarding it is to be a chaplain.
“I think I have the best job,” says Garnett. “What a privilege it is to be allowed into a person’s vulnerable moments.”
OMG! Our taxpayer dollars go to this NONSENSE!!!!