Parish nurses attend to needs of the whole person

Intermountain Catholic

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Mary Wittke (right), CareSource Home Health and Hospice chaplain, blesses Marge Kimes hands with oil blessed by Father Francis MacNutt, a Catholic priest and author of ?The Prayer that Heals.? Wittke prays, ?May the work of your hands bring healing to all of the people you touch.? All of the parish nurses had their hands blessed with water, a symbol of life, and the oil.

SALT LAKE CITY — Parish nursing bridges the gap between health care and spirituality. A parish nurse attends to the needs of the whole person – body, mind, and spirit. The parish nurse offers the parish community health education, emotional, and spiritual support.

St. John the Baptist Parish in Draper, St. Vincent de Paul Parish in Salt Lake City, Holy Cross Ministries in Salt Lake City, First Congregational Church in Salt Lake City, and other ecumenical churches within the Salt Lake Valley have parish nurses. There are 15 parish nurses who are members of the Rocky Mountain Parish Nurse Ministries (RMPNM) in Salt Lake City.

RMPNM is offered through Westminster College in Salt Lake City. To qualify a student nurse must be committed to practice in the role of a parish nurse, and have a letter of commitment from his or her faith community.

In 1984, Rev. Granger Westberg, a Lutheran pastor and hospital chaplain, began a pilot program of parish nursing in the Chicago area. Westberg believed that healing was not only physical but spiritual and mental as well. He linked six Chicago-area churches with Lutheran General Hospital in Parkridge, Ill. Over time, nurses came to be part of the church staff. From the beginning, parish nursing has been an ecumenical movement. It is now an international ministry with more than 6,000 nurses known as parish nurses. The International Parish Nursing Resource Center in St. Louis, Mo., offers a yearly seminar, training, books, and support for parish nursing.

"The RMPNM began in Salt Lake City in 1999, after five nurses attended the Westberg Conference and saw a need in Salt Lake City," said Marge Kimes, president of RMPNM, and a member of the First Congregational Church. These five nurses attended training in the northwest, and then became the educators for RMPNM through Westminster College.

"They saw the need to integrate the spiritual aspect into the health care field," said Carolyn Kunz, a nurse and minister to the sick at St. John the Baptist Parish. "I would say here in Utah, most of us who have been nurses, were ministering to parishioners anyway. People ask us random questions all the time."

Kunz said RMPNM puts out a newsletter on topics such as skin cancer, West Nile Virus, helmets for kids, camping tips, and other topics.

"The whole idea of our ministry is to keep people healthy and at home," said Holy Cross Sister Miriam Joanne Frankenfield, who is also a parish nurse. What is great is we involve the elderly in visiting the home bound. It keeps them active.

"We do not do clinical, hands-on nursing," said LaRee Osman, a parish nurse at St. Vincent de Paul Parish. "We help refer people to the proper medical resources."

"We also help people who are dying," said Sr. Miriam Joanne. "We help them with preparation and bereavement."

Osman said there is a big need for bereavement support groups. At St. Vincent de Paul Parish, she is the facilitator of a bereavement group that meets for nine sessions in the spring and the fall.

"When we are ministering to the dying, we are not only helping the patient who is dying, we are also helping the family," said Kunz. "You build a relationship with them and help prepare them for the death of their loved one. Then once the person dies, you are there to help the family with the bereavement and grieving process. It is one continuous process, and so many people have said how helpful it was having the same parish nurse through the whole journey with them."

"Through Holy Cross Ministries we work in various parishes. I think sometimes you go meet with a person for one specific reason, but once you get there, you find out they don’t have any food, they don’t have any furniture, and the children need clothing," said Sr. Miriam Joanne. "We are sent to them by a priest, they are not coming to us. So we are able to go into their element and help them with all their needs by contacting the agencies who can help them. It does not matter what religion these people are, they are people in need. I think it is so important to keep people well."

Sr. Miriam relies on Holy Cross Sister Jacinta Millan, who is fluent in Spanish, to assist her when she visits a Latino family. This gives the mother of the household one-on-one time with Sr. Jacinta, while Sr. Miriam plays with the children.

"Within the St. Vincent de Paul boundaries, we have 25 plus care centers we visit because we are in the middle of the valley," said Osman. "This includes St. Mark’s Hospital, Cottonwood Hospital, and the new Intermountain Medical Center. We also visit the home bound people within our boundaries.

"I have also given all of the care centers in the valley instructions that explain anointing of the sick," said Osman, whose husband is Deacon Dave Osman. "I explained to them they do not have to wait for an individual to be dying before he or she can be anointed because sometimes it can be a psychological issue.

Osman and her husband make calls together and they make a great team with her being a nurse and him a deacon. They compliment each other in meeting the needs of those they visit.

The Catholic parish nurses also serve as Eucharistic ministers. All of the parish nurses pray with those they serve.

At a RMPNM "Prayer and Healing" Spring Retreat April 19, Mary Wittke, CareSource Home Health and Hospice chaplain, told the parish nurses it is important to be a good listener, and the motivation behind prayer must be love. There must be love for God, love for the patient, and love for themselves.

"God loves us, we realize it and love him back, and it overflows to those with whom we are praying," said Wittke. "Before you pray with someone, listen to them with patience and interest. The very act of listening deeply and intently can provide the most healing. If you go in with an agenda, that listening will not occur. It is important before you pray, to listen to God for the words to pray with that person for healing."