The funding of hospital chaplaincy services must be clarified and greater support given to chaplains, says the new president of the Healthcare Chaplains' Association.
Lakeland Health's chaplain, the Rev Ray Bloomfield, says he plans to take up a number of issues to ensure chaplains remain an integral part of hospital services.
Funding for hospital chaplains was previously split 50-50 between the Health Funding Authority and the Inter-Church Council on Hospital Chaplaincy (ICHC), which has the contract for public hospitals in New Zealand and gets some church funding.
Mr Bloomfield said the Government's current portion was about 30 per cent of the funding required to run the services, and churches were struggling to come up with the rest.
Churches were seen as chaplains' official employers but that needed to change to ensure chaplaincy services were retained in hospitals.
"I think we will need to move to the hospitals being the employer."
He said chaplains worked as and when required, which meant they often worked more than the 40 hours a week for which they were contracted.
"There is a real danger of the goodwill of hospital chaplains being taken for granted due to a lack of clarity of employment issues.
"Appropriate funding is required to maintain the validity of the service and the wellbeing of the individual."
Chaplains played an important role in the healing process for both patients and staff and this should be acknowledged, he said.
Hospital chaplains did not represent any particular church and were responsible for providing for the spiritual care of patients, their families and hospital staff, representing people of all faiths or no faith.
Mr Bloomfield said he also acted as an advocate for patients, their families and for staff, was involved in stress management in times of critical situations, counselled staff, conducted grief sessions, and held services, funerals and weddings.
- NZPA
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