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Health Care Chaplaincy in Latvia
Latvia (one of the three
Baltic States) has a population of approx. two million (2,271,000 in
2008), half of which live in the capital city Riga. There are
approximately 120 hospitals in our country, only 15 of them (the biggest
hospitals) have chaplains. However major structural, legislative and
economic changes in our country like in other parts of the world influence
every field of health care.
Since 2005 there has been a professional organization for healthcare
chaplaincy in Latvia – the Association of Professional Health Care
Chaplaincy (LPVAKA).
Our mission is to develop an open system for interdenominational and
interfaith dialogue, which educates, trains and certifies spiritual
care-givers in different health care settings. From the beginning we have
also taken the initiative to educate society and especially the medical
community about relevant issues regarding spiritual dimension of health
care, human rights, bioethics, end-of-life and palliative care, etc.
organizing local and international conferences (2005, 2006, 2007).
The legislation in Latvia now allows each health care institution
to decide itself whether or not, how many and to what extent they employ
spiritual care givers. Although the situation now is in transition –
recently our country has begun to elaborate a National Cancer Control
Programme and the chaplain is being taken into account as a full member of
multidisciplinary team at least in palliative care – our Association has
been invited to participate in a working group on palliative care within
the framework of this programme. Also the Patient Rights Law is waiting to
be enacted soon where our Association has achieved that spiritual care be
included as one of the basic rights of patients, relatives and staff.
Although there have been many struggles since then!
Over the past two years the Association achieved three new professions to
be put into the Latvia Classificatory of Professions, namely, Director of
Spiritual Care Department, professional health care chaplain, associate
chaplain.
All employed chaplains are paid by hospitals. Some denominations
try to support their chaplains by symbolic stipends and opportunities to
receive spiritual care and pastoral support as well as to participate in
international conferences and workshops. Our Association has always tried
to seek additional funding through local and foreign sponsorship to
realize most of its projects. Last year we achieved our Association being
recognized as a charity organization – this status facilitates the
involvement of sponsors and raising funds for our programmes and projects.
At this moment there are 25 hospital chaplains in Latvia, two of
them have successfully completed four units of CPE in USA (Barnes-Jewish
Hospital, St. Louis, USA). Not all working chaplains are members of the
Association. The number of the membership of the Association has been
constantly changing since its foundation, mainly because of the rather
high requirements the Association demands from its members. We have five
different member categories – professional chaplain, associate chaplain,
student, affiliate and honorary member – all of these have different
requirements, rights and obligations.
Approximately two thirds of all working chaplains have completed
clinical training in Latvia based on principles of CPE in USA, however
less in- and ex-tensive and much shorter. One of the main issues we
feel as problematic now is lack of qualified supervision for working
chaplains. We are trying to solve it through collegiate supervisions and
holding monthly workshops where we analyse our own verbatims and prepare
different relevant presentations ourselves as well as we can, also
inviting experts from different disciplines – nurses, physicians,
psychologists, theologians, etc.
The Association holds Annual Certification interviews and always
invites experts from other countries to serve on the Certification
Committee as we have no qualified supervisors in Latvia yet. Nevertheless
we try to educate all those who have a vocation to work as chaplains in
health care settings. All working chaplains - Association members, whether
they are certified or not, have obligation to fulfil the educational
programme each year and gather certain amount of points to maintain their
member status.
Last year (2007) the Association of Professional Health Care Chaplaincy of
Latvia organized a two-day international conference “The Quality of Life
in Illness and Death – Interdisciplinary Approach”. More than 200 people
participated from Christian Churches, other faith communities, hospitals,
theological universities, medical universities, medical associations,
state and public organizations, mass media, and others interested parties.
The Conference included such presentations and workshops as: The negative
aspects of pain and its impact on the systems of human organism, The
quality of life of paediatric patients with life-limiting illneses and
their families, The quality of life and ethical dilemmas of adult patients
with life-limiting illneses and their families, The quality of life of
carers of severaly ill and dying persons, Palliative care and problematics
of euthanasia, The possibilities of alternative therapies for persons with
life-limiting illneses and their carers, etc..
Among the speakers there were two participants from other European
countries - Dr. Sergiy Filimonov, DTh, MD, priest of the Orthodox
Church of Russia, Doctor of Medicine, President of the Society for
Orthodox Physicians who lectured on "The Role Spirituality and Religion
Plays in Health Care, Russian Orthodox Christian Spirituality in the
Context of the Health Care System of Russia”. Dr. Anne Vandenhoeck,
PhD, lecturer in the CatholicUniversity of Leuven, Faculty of
Theology, CPE Supervisor, Committee Member of the European Network of
Health Care Chaplaincy (Leuven, Belgium) lectured on "Hope and Quality of
Life for Palliative Patients."
We had also guests from USA - sister Janet Crane, M.A., member of
the School Sisters of Notre Dame, HIV/AIDS Educator with the Red Cross,
the Organization of Professional Chaplains of Eastern Africa (St. Luis,
Missouri, USA and Nairobi, Kenya) lectured on “Quality and Harmony of Life
in Illness and Death – A Chaplain's Story” and lead a workshop on “Impact
of Infectious Diseases on the Spiritual Outlook of a Person. What should
be considered caring for a person with end -stage AIDS, STD and other
infectious deseases”. Lisa Novak , R. N., B. S. N., Six Sigma Green
Belt Certified Performance Excellence Consultant and Instructor, Fairview
Health Services (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) lead a workshop on “How to
Build a High Functioning Health Care Team” where participants learned the
benefits of a high functioning health care team and learned what steps to
take to build a cohesive effective team.
We had also our dear friends and co-workers from Barnes-Jewish Hospital
in St. Louis, Missouri, USA - Rev. Lawrence Olatunde, M.Div, B.C.C.,
Chaplain, Emergency/Trauma Services of the Barnes-Jewish Hospital, who
lectured on “The Spiritual and Psycho-emotional Needs of the Patients,
their Families and Staff in the Emergency /Trauma and Intensive Care
Units”. We were very lucky to have the inspirator and teacher of Latvia
professional health care chaplaincy and Honorary Member of our Association
Rev. Dace Skudina, D.Min., B.C.C., Women and Infants Chaplain of
the Barnes-Jewish Hospital who lead a workshop on “The Spiritual Needs of
a Dying Person. Methods of Assessment and Response for Medical Staff”.
Among our guests from Barnes-Jewish Hospital there was also Rev. Arthur
M. Lucas, an ACPE Certified Supervisor and the Director of Spiritual
Care Services at Barnes-Jewish Hospital (St. Louis, MO) and more – our
Association's Honorary Member and dear friend who lectured on our first
Conference in 2005 and now for the second time served on Certification
Committee here in Latvia.
Dana Kalnina-Zake
President of the Latvia Association of Professional Health Care Chaplaincy
Director of the Spiritual Care Department
Paul Stradins Clinical University Hospital, Riga
LATVIA
Latvia participants of the 10th Consultations of ENHCC in Tartu,
Estonia
Dana Kalnina-Zake
Dana Kalnina-Zake is a health care chaplain from Latvia and belongs to
Latvia Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia. She serves as a Director for
Spiritual Care Department in Paul Stradins Clinical University Hospital,
which is the central multi-profile university type hospital of Latvia. She
is the President of the Association of Professional Health Care Chaplaincy
of Latvia.
Lelde Titava
Lelde Titava is a health care chaplain from Latvia. She serves as a
chaplain for Woman and Infants Services at Paul Stradins Clinical
University Hospital, which is the central multi-profile university type
hospital of Latvia. Lelde is the Vice President of Latvia Association of
Professional Health Care Chaplaincy. She is the initiator of the first
Memorial Grove in Latvia (Dveselu darzs) for families who suffer pregnancy
loss and want to bury babies ashes along with others.
Juris Meijers
Juris Meijers is a health care chaplain and a physician from Latvia and
belongs to Roman Catholic Church of Latvia. He serves as a chaplain at
hospital “Linezers”, which is part of Riga Eastern Clinical Hospital, the
largest multi-profile university type hospital of Latvia. He is the Member
of the Board of the Association of Professional Health Care Chaplaincy of
Latvia.
[May 2008]
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