Meritus Health Spiritual Care Services
Spiritual support for patients, their families, volunteers, and staff. Pastoral presence, care, counseling, prayer, support groups, classes, religious rituals, and worship opportunities are all integrated into the total care and treatment of our patients so that they may discover and experience hope, compassion, meaning, and purpose in life.
Chaplains are part of the patient care team, offering support to patients and families in crisis by helping to provide spiritual care and resources. We offer to journey with you during your stay, sharing joys and sorrows, providing support in times of suffering and distress, and offering hope in the face of illness and death. We support families of all faith communities.
Our Mission
The mission of Spiritual Care Services is to provide spiritual support and education for staff, patients, and the community.
Our Contribution to Leadership
Chaplains contribute of the leadership of our hospital and community by serving on various committees and programs including:
- Accessibility
- Community Boards
- Cultural Diversity
- Ethics
- Flu Exemption
- Operations meetings
- Palliative Care Advisory Team
- Parish Nursing
- Patient and Family Centered Care
- Service recovery
- Strategic initiatives and long-range planning
- Wellness
Our Services
Our chaplains provide daily visitation, prayer, emergency baptism, grief and bereavement counseling, coping assistance and conversation. Chaplains are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Patients may contact the chaplain's office directly or ask their nurse to do so on their behalf.
Patient and family care services include:
- Spiritual, religious, and cultural assessment
- Ministry with diverse family dynamics to improve them
- Relief of psychosocial/spiritual concerns
- Spiritual and emotional support
- Crisis ministry/management
- Bereavement care
- Prayer, blessings, and rituals
- End-of-life care
- Organ recovery support
- Spiritual and cultural education
Call a chaplain if you are:
- Having a physical, emotional, or spiritual challenge
- Facing a difficult decision
- Death seems near and you are wondering what will happen to you or your loved one
- Wanting someone to consult confidentially about important matters
- Wanting sacraments or prayer
- Needing a sacred text to read
Click here to view the Spiritual Care Services brochure.
Spiritual Resources
Prayer and meditation areas. An interfaith chapel is located on the second floor adjacent to the Same Day Surgery welcome area, and a quiet room is also available for prayer on 5 East (#5331) next to the Family and Visitor Welcome Center.
Sacred texts such as Bibles and Qurans as well as rosaries and other devotional items are available from Spiritual Care Services by calling ext. 8479.
The Chaplain's Channel, TV channel 115, features continuous soothing instrumental music and peaceful scenes designed to encourage relaxation and healing.
A Patient's Prayer
O Gracious One, source of all life and healing, be with me in this time of physical and emotional need. Help me to rest and cope with the challenges I am facing.
Comfort and encourage those who love and care for me whose lives have been unsettled and disrupted by my illness and hospitalization.
Guide and give wisdom to the health care personnel who are committed to my treatment and well-being.
In this special moment of my need, I pray for healing and for inner peace. I pray for patience and for understanding. I pray for a deepening of my faith and belief in you, my loving God. Amen.
Weekly Prayer
Immortal, invisible God, you have been faithful to us, once again, as we come before you. Quiet now those distracting thoughts of worry, those demanding voices of the world around us. Enable us to experience your holy presence and to hear your call upon our lives. You have sent us forth to be your preachers and teachers, your healers and helpers, witnesses to your grace and the doers of your will. May we, the blessed, be a blessing to all we meet. In Your name we pray. Amen
