|
|
Health Care Chaplaincy in Sweden
Hospital Chaplaincy in Sweden
There is much to be said about the history of hospital chaplaincy in
Sweden. But I will start my description in the 1960s. From that time a
growing number of clergymen in the Church of Sweden devoted themselves to
hospital chaplaincy as a full time job. There was no formal education for
chaplaincy. A few chaplains had been in USA and had Clinical Pastoral
Education (CPE) to some extent. A working group within the Svenska kyrkans
pastoratsförbund (An Alliance of the Parishes in the Church of Sweden)
started to organise conferences once a year from 1969 and onwards. Those
conferences has been very important meetings for the hospital chaplaincy in
Sweden during the years.
In the 1970-ties there was the emergence of a new category
chaplains. Chaplains who were deaconesses and also non ordained chaplains.
They were employed by the local parish, which determined the qualifications
for the job.
1974 there was appointed a governmental committee which
should give proposals how to solve the new needs in the chaplaincy. At the
same time there was a committee in the Church of Sweden which suggested a
professional education. 1979 the proposal was made and the main new feature
was that the responsibility for Hospital Chaplaincy was to be shared between
the Free churches and the Church of Sweden.
State money was allotted to the Council of the Free churches
to be distributed to the local free church congregations who joined to
provide a position for a free church chaplain.
During the 1980s there was the consolidation of the new organisation. A new
professional education was created. Standards for co-operation in hospitals
were adopted. A central office for the Free church chaplains and another one
for the Church of Sweden was set up. Through close co-operation it was
possible for the two secretaries to establish a well functioning chaplaincy.
Hospital chaplaincy in Sweden has a long, well-functioning ecumenical
tradition. Church of Sweden, the Free Churches and the Roman Catholic church
work close together in teams in the hospitals. The Roman Catholic church is
represented in just a few teams, mostly in larger hospital. The Free
Churches are represented in almost every local team in some way.
There are to day approx. 310 chaplains, deacons, non ordained chaplains,
musicians etc. working in hospitals from the Church of Sweden on a full time
or part time basis. The Free Churches counts approx. 50 pastors as hospital
chaplains. Most of them are orginased in The Association of Health Care
Chaplains within the Church of Sweden or in the Association of Free Church
Chaplains in Health Care.
During 1999 – 2000 the professional education in hospital chaplaincy was
revised. The new course plans for Pastoral care and counselling in the
Public Health Service, focuses at the following three targets:
• The chaplain himself/herself. This part of the training
will invite reflection on what the professional in Pastoral care and
counselling is.
• The patient/confidant. This part of the training will focus on the needs
of the confidant. What does the confidant look for in the meeting with the
chaplain and how can the situation of the confidant be made easier?
• The communicative meeting
You can read more about the new education on the website:
www.svenskakyrkan.se/samariterhemmet/andligvard.html
Also the standards for the chaplaincy in health care has been under
revision. New standards are under distribution.
During recent years (from 1990 – until today) health care in Sweden has
undergone a great change. The number of beds in the hospitals as well as the
nursing time cuts down in the hospitals and the patients are more and more
treated in their homes. You may say that never has so many sick patients
been treated by so few under such a short time in hospitals as to day, and
never has so many and so sick patients been treated by nursing teams and
relatives in their homes as to day.
Those changes in health care must have an impact on how
chaplaincy amongst our sick is to be formed. The responsibility for the
spiritual care is not a question only for those how work with chaplaincy in
hospitals, but to an increasing extent a question for the local parish, the
clergy, deacons and lay persons.
How to deal with those questions is a main task for me as coordinator for
Hospital Chaplaincy in Church of Sweden as well as for my colleague
Gunnel Andréasson, coordinator for hospital Chaplaincy in the Free
Churches.
[June 2008]
Åsa Jonsson
I have been working in Hospital Chaplaincy at the University Hospital in
Uppsala since 1978. We are six persons in the Chaplaincy team and we work on
an ecumenical basis. For the last eleven years I have been the team leader.
Over the years I have concentrated on different wards but maternity and
children's units have been my main responsibility.
Both I and my colleagues are frequently asked to give lectures for staff,
students in medicine and nursing and also different church education on
topics as ethics, crisis, coping with severe illness, caring for the carers
and multi-religious/cultural encounters.
Between 1989 and 1998 I took a lot of responsibility in facilitating the
education for Hospital Chaplains.
In 1997 I attended my first ECPCC conference and in 2005 I was in the group
planning the conference in Sigtuna, Sweden.
I am now the vice president of ECPCC.
On April 1st 2008 I started working half time as Coordinator for Health Care
Chaplaincy in the Church of Sweden, and when Anders Höglund retirers this
fall it will be full time for me.
For me this means leaving the ”on the floor” Hospital Chaplaincy, but all
the experience is a gift in the new setting as a coordinator that will come
in handy when working with for example seminars and writing articles gaining
Chaplaincy work.
Just imagine reading, writing or thinking without the interruptions of an
emergency call or waking up by a telephone call in the midst of the night
rushing off to the hospital to be at someone's side...
I am so fond of my chaplaincy work but now the time has come to move on.
Rev Åsa Jonsson
Coordinator for Health Care Chaplaincy in the Church of Sweden
and for four more months Chaplain at the University Hospital in Uppsala
[May 2008]
Top
Anders Höglund
My name is Rev Anders Höglund, former coordinator of Health
Care Chaplaincy in in Church of Sweden.
In 2000 I succeeded Rev Sten Lundgren when he retired after more than thirty
years as coordinator of Health Care Chaplaincy in Church of Sweden. Since
April 1, 2008 Rev Åsa Jonsson has taken over that ministry.
Until my retirement in October 2008 I work on a project preparing for a new
ministry as coordinator for Chaplaincy in municipality and in homes. There
are an increasing number of sick people taken care of in homes and in
special living in municipality. The question is to find methods suitable to
work in this somewhat new situation.
The task for the new coordinator is to support the diocese in our church to
promote the parishes in their ministry for pastoral care and counselling
amongst patients and medical staff in municipality and in homes.
The way of doing that will be rather similar to the way the coordinator for
Chaplaincy in Hospital works. That is:
A.
- Keep contact and be available to people dealing with health care
chaplaincy on the diocese level.
- Keep in touch with health care chaplaincy at the local level by
informing of the development of health care chaplaincy in other parts of
Sweden and abroad.
- Keep myself and the chaplaincy updated on what happens in society
regarding health care reforms etc.
B.
- Develop course plans for training in health care chaplaincy and give
courses in pastoral care and counselling. We have also to find new course
plans suited for training of parish workers, clergy, deacons and lay
people.
- Try to keep a discourse going on on different aspects, theological,
psychological etc. on pastoral care and counselling.
Rev Anders Höglund
[May 2008]
Top
Rose-Marie Eriksson
I have been working as a deaconess in hospital church, at
the hospital located in Eskilstuna, since 1998. The hospital is called “Mälarsjukhuset”.
Before this I worked as a trained nurse in Stockholm and Strängnäs for many
years.
In Eskilstuna we usually are a team of six persons; one Chaplain, two
deaconesses, ½ cantor and music therapist, all employed in the Swedish
Church, and also one pastor (Baptist minister). Soon a Chaplain from the
Finnish congregation is to begin in our team one day a week and then we will
be six persons as usual.
For several years I and my colleague deaconess had groups for maltreated
women and therefore had cooperation with the police, social services and the
office of the public prosecutor etc. We also had groups for children and
youth who by death lost close members of their family.
My work today is mostly related to patients in psychiatric care, emergency
and accident patients but also medical, surgical and cancer patients.
We serve patients as well as relatives and hospital staff and we are also
asked to deliver lectures of various kinds.
The last months I have been an elected representative for the Nurses Union
and for some years now, I´ve also been a member of the committee of SKAIS
(The association for hospital Chaplaincy in the Swedish Church) and last
year I became vice president.
Rose-Marie Eriksson
Deaconess in hospital church for the Church of Sweden
Eskilstuna
[May 2008]
Top
Gunnel Andréasson
My name is Gunnel Andréasson and I am a pastor of the Baptist Union of
Sweden. Since July 2004, I work as Coordinator for Health Care Chaplaincy
within the Free Church Council of Sweden. The Free Church Council of Sweden
include churches of different confessional families such as Methodists,
Baptists, Reformed and Pentecostals. Common for them all is that they have
their roots in the 19th century revival movement in Sweden. They were
counted as “free churches,” in relation to the Lutheran Church which until
year 2000 was the state church of Sweden. The Free Church Council of Sweden
is since some years integrated in the Christian Council of Sweden.
Assignment
Before entering the position I have now, I was International Mission
Secretary for the Baptist Union of Sweden. Before that I have been serving
as pastor in local Baptist churches. My work assignment is within three
major areas: Hospital chaplaincy, extramural (health care) chaplaincy and
relations with people representing other religions, especially Moslems, in
the area of hospital chaplaincy.
The assignment could be described as follows:
1. In consultation with an elected committee, allocate the state subsidy
given to the ministers of the Free Church hospital chaplains, as well as to
the Catholic chaplains and the Orthodox chaplains. Related to this task is
also to keep a regular contact with the chaplains through visits, circulars
and other forms of communication.
2. In consultation with another committee, encourage the churches in Sweden
to develop and strengthen work in the field of extramural health care and to
do so on an ecumenical basis.
3. In contact with different Moslem organisations in Sweden, encourage the
Moslems to strengthen their involvement within the spiritual care at the
hospitals and to find ways for cooperation in the hospitals between Moslems
and Christians. At the moment there is one Moslem hospital chaplain working
part time at a hospital in the southern part of Sweden. Three more positions
are in preparation. In the latest year I have also assisted the Stockholm
Synagogue in developing a project within the area of hospital chaplaincy.
Ecumenical health care chaplaincy in Sweden
Hospital chaplaincy in Sweden is ecumenical and has been carried out in
co-operation between the Church of Sweden and the free churches since the
beginning of the 1980s. Today an increasing number, although still few, of
catholic priests and nuns are being incorporated in the work. Since year
2007 there is also one orthodox priest working as hospital chaplain in the
Gothenburg area. All together there are about 350 people working in
connection to hospital chaplaincy in Sweden, representing the Lutheran
Church, the Free Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox
churches. The chaplains from the Free Churches, the Catholic Church and the
Orthodox churches are mainly pastors, priests and catholic sisters. Together
these groups include a little over 50 co-workers. The co-workers from the
Lutheran church, totally a little less than 300 persons, include both
priest, deacons, church musicians etc.
Extramural (healthcare) chaplaincy
At the moment there is a movement within the Swedish state health system,
with the implication that an increasing number of sick people are cared for
in their homes and in special living in municipality. A challenge is thus to
encourage churches to address this partly new situation, searching for
methods of meeting the spiritual needs of people in this particular
circumstance.
Looking at the future, a hope is that a larger number of chaplains from the
Catholic Church and the Orthodox and Oriental Churches in Sweden, will be
incorporated in the work. A hope is also that we will find practical,
effective and acceptable forms for co-operation with the Moslems.
Some years back we revised the curricula of our pastoral care courses for
health care chaplains. This is a program developed in cooperation between
the Lutheran Church (The Swedish Church) and the Swedish Free Church
Council. However the intention is that it should serve the Catholic Church
and the Orthodox- and Oriental churches as well. Drawing conclusions from
the revision that was done, we are confident that it has been constructive
and that the course program that is offered, is a good presupposition for
enhancing the competence of our chaplains and their quality of work.
Rev Gunnel Andréasson
Coordinator for Health Care Chaplaincy,
The Free Churches' Council of Sweden
[May 2008]
Top
Carl-Axel Skoeldeberg
Carl-Axel Skoeldeberg writes: " been a pastor in the health
care chaplaincy at St Goran's Hospital in Stockholm since 1992. Before I
began here I worked as Baptist minister for 18 years. I work in a team with
two hospital chaplains from the Church of Sweden. The first 9 years St
Goran's was most known as the Children's Hospital. Today it is well known
for it is the first private emergency hospital in Sweden with a European
Healthcare Company as owner. Capio St Goran provides healthcare and
diagnostics services for public and private customers. All patients are
welcome and given care on equal terms.
Most of the time my work is related to cancer patients, as well as to
accident and emergency patients. Usually I meet patients on the wards in
pastoral care, nurses and doctors in reflection groups were we discuses
ethical and existential questions. I am also the leader for the psycho
trauma team on the hospital in case of catastrophe.
Since 1992 I have also followed patients from the emergency hospital to the
hospice on the other side of the street.
FAS, is The Swedish Free Church Hospital Chaplains Association with about 50
members. I became president 2007.
[May 2008]
top
|
