When COVID brings despair, Columbus hospital chaplains share hope. Meet two of them.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, as the lead chaplains at their Columbus hospitals, Pat Ingram and the Rev. Marlon Scott already felt their teams played vital roles in the lives of patients, families and staff.
But the coronavirus has made their services more critical to healthcare because they often are the only nonmedical, in-person contact coronavirus patients have while hospitalized. Family members are allowed to be at the patient’s bedside during the pandemic only when hospital staff determines the patient is at the end of life.
When times are tough, Scott seeks to serve.
“Staff in hospitals across the country are experiencing a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety, and it’s just very valuable to have a chaplain on staff to be able to comfort the families as well as the caregivers,” Scott said. “. . . This is what you’ve been training for and preparing for. You’ve been thrown into the fire, and you’re able to perform and still help and encourage people.”
Scott has been the senior chaplain at Piedmont Columbus Regional for 14 years. He is the founding pastor of Emmanuel Christian Community Church.
Piedmont Columbus has two full-time chaplains and four part-time chaplains. Combined, they make an estimated 35 to 50 contacts per day — in person, by phone, email, text message — while being available 24/7 for thousands of patients and families and approximately 3,000 employees per year across two hospital campuses and one cancer center.
The chaplain department at St. Francis has three full-time and one part-time position and is augmented by the chaplain training program, which has three residents and four interns. St. Francis has approximately 2,300 employees and 376 beds. The chaplains also serve the Columbus Clinic and the Bradley Center. The daily total number of St. Francis chaplain visits are 25 or more per day.
Ingram has served St. Francis for 13 years, starting as an administrator in the chaplain department then becoming manager last year. She is a lay minister in the United Methodist Church.
“In the middle of this COVID, ain’t nothing normal,” she told the L-E. “A lot of people are on edge. … The world is so ugly sometimes, and a lot more now. I love being that voice of, ‘How are you doing? How can I help you?’”
Demetrius McBride is among the Columbus residents grateful for hospital chaplains.
‘So caring’
McBride’s parents, Andrew McBride II and Betty-Jean “BJ” Thomas McBride, were hospitalized one day apart for COVID-19. They died one month apart, and three rooms apart, at Piedmont Columbus Regional.
BJ, retired guidance director for the Muscogee County School District, died Aug. 15 at 71. Andrew, retired senior information technology administrator for Synovus, died Sept. 15 at 67.
Demetrius, 34, a customer service representative for Anthem, praised PCR personnel and senior chaplain Rev. Marlon Scott for the impact they made on his family.
“That entire staff was so caring,” he said.
Scott’s prayers helped the McBride family at their various moments of need in the hospital, Demetrius said. Beyond the prayers, he also appreciated Scott’s personal attention.
“He was just, ‘Anything you need, just give me a call.’ He was definitely there for us,” Demetrius said. “… Some people might say, ‘Well, that’s his job as a chaplain,’ but he doesn’t have to do it with such care and grace.”
Demetrius’ wife, Tiffany McBride, an ordained minister, recalled the comfort they received when Scott told them he was praying over BJ.
“It just gave us a sense of hope,” she told the L-E. “There’s somebody there touching her. She has somebody there that she can be with, outside of the nurses and the doctors.”
Tiffany also recalled Scott told her in a text, while Andrew was on a ventilator, “I am in the room with your father-in-law, and I have his hand, and I’m praying with him now.”
Before he signed the paperwork to take his father off the ventilator, Demetrius requested a prayer from Rev. Scott. Tiffany got him on the phone, put it on speaker and held it close to Andrew.
“At this point,” she said, “I’m watching my father-in-love’s heart rate steadily decrease and his oxygen go from 40 to 20 to 10 to zero. We just needed a prayer of peace and comfort.”
Demetrius described Scott as empathetic and kind.
“One thing about Rev. Scott, it’s not about him; it’s about the family,” he said. “It’s about his relationship with the higher power, with Christ, and conveying the family’s needs at that time. … He’s what you need him to be in the midst of what you’re going through.”
‘Just want you there’
When words aren’t enough, Scott relies on the ministry of presence.
“People just want you there,” he said. “. . . That ministry of presence is just very powerful, and that’s what I wanted to convey to the McBride family and all the families who come through here.”
But when COVID-19 restrictions prevent even him from being bedside, Scott connects with the patients in other ways.
“We’ve had to improvise, pivot on the spot, using technology, using FaceTime, using iPads, WebX seminars, Zoom, in order to still create that intimacy,” he said.
The reception from the patients, Scott said, has been surprisingly positive.
“I’ve had people respond on a FaceTime prayer or a cellphone prayer, iPad prayer, just like I was there in person,” he said. “So that’s been refreshing because, as chaplains, we’re worried about how that touch will be, and through technology, we’ve been able to pivot and still provide that care.”
Asked how he provides hope amid the despair, Scott said, “You just really have to lean on your faith. … One of the most important things that a pastor and a chaplain is taught is that ministry of presence. One of the most rewarding things in this job is a lot of times I feel like I don’t have the words to say, but I’m there, and I’m letting them know I’m there.”
‘God is everywhere’
Ingram reminds herself to restrain her “type-A” personality when consoling someone in the hospital.
“We can’t show up going, ‘We’re bringing God into the room,’” she said. “The last time I checked, God is everywhere..”
Ingram likes to arrive early to be present for the staff as they come to work.
“Even though we have the masks right now,” she said, “you can look into somebody’s eyes and see if they’re pained or if they’re stressing out, and we try to talk to them and just calm them down.”
The surgery waiting room is another prime place for pastoral care. Just strolling through, she can sense who might need and be receptive to her approach.
Chaplains make rounds to the patient rooms. They also visit when requested.
“It really is about reading the room, listening to what God is saying,” she said. “Sometimes it makes no sense. … You have to listen. You really have to listen.”
‘Our superpower is prayer’
During emergencies, Ingram said, the chaplain follows the rush but stays out of the way.
“You make sure whoever is running the code sees you so they know there’s a chaplain there,” she said. “Our superpower is prayer, so we don’t have to be all up in it. … We can be quietly praying at that time.”
The chaplain is present for the staff as well as the patients and families. After a medical team handles an emergency, Ingram assesses where she can be useful.
“You can read the body language,” she said. “You know that look of, ‘Help! Help!’ So you walk over. ‘How are you doing after that?’ ‘I’m not doing well. I remember when my grandma died, and she reminds me of my grandma.’ Or ‘This was my first code, and I made it.’ Or ‘I wasn’t feeling well this morning, and then this happened.’ Or ‘I haven’t seen my parents because they’re elderly and they live far away.’”
The goal is connecting, Ingram said.
COVID restrictions at St. Francis prevent chaplains from touching the people they are trying to console. So instead of holding a patient’s hand, Ingram clasps her own hands as a reminder.
“Sometimes I have to hold real hard because someone is crying,” she said. “It feels very strange. … God can reach out beyond my arms, but I have to learn that, and we’re training our team to know that.”
Ingram initially was “very fearful” about getting infected while working amid the pandemic.
“Then I’m at a place where my faith has to be that I’m OK,” she said. “I need to follow good CDC guidelines. … I’m asthmatic, so I want to be careful, but I cannot live my life in fear. … I also understand we work in a hospital; it’s cleaner than a whole lot of places. They clean this place top-to-bottom every day. So I just have to be in that place of God.”
When the coronavirus prevents chaplains from entering a patient’s room, they connect through the phone.
“Sometimes you hear tears on the other end,” Ingram said. “Sometimes you here, ‘Please pray for me.’ Sometimes they don’t answer.”
‘An emotional connection’
Through his 35 years in medicine, Dr. Michael Metry, the medical director of intensive care at St. Francis, has learned to consider chaplains a key part of a hospital’s healthcare team.
“Spirituality is incredibly important in the wellness and the well-being of people, no matter what their faith is,” he said. “Even people who are nonbelievers have a spirituality, an emotional connection to something greater than them.”
Compared to hospitals without chaplain services, hospitals providing chaplain services had significantly lower rates of patient deaths and higher rates of hospice enrollment, according to a 2012 national study of data from 3,585 hospitals, authored by Emanuel Flannelly, Galek Handzo and Carlson Silton and published in the journal BMC Palliative Care.
Other national studies indicate higher rates of satisfaction with medical treatment in hospitals among patients and families when they receive chaplain services compared to when they don’t.
Metry has seen hospital staff, patients and families rely on the chaplains even more during the pandemic.
“They help me a lot because we have to deal with distressed families, and they really help that grieving process or emotional distress,” he said. “Personally, if we’re feeling down or some emotional distress from all the sickness and all the death and all the isolation, they act as emotional support for the providers.”
Metry recalled struggling with his emotions in the wake of a COVID patient’s death.
“It was one of the many deaths we’ve had, and I was feeling bad about it,” he said. “Some days, the mortality just gets to you. I tell that to families. I’ve done this for over 30 years, and I hate this conversation every time.”
St. Francis chaplain Walter Phillips Jr. was especially helpful then. Phillips told Metry something he already knew, but Metry welcomed the reminder during that tough moment:
“We have to understand that we’re not really in control,” Metry recalled Phillips telling him. “Once you realize that, you come to some level of peace. Sometimes in the world of science and being a provider, you think you can make an impact and make a difference, but, ultimately, we’re not in control. We’re a tool, but we don’t control the final outcome. There are so many other factors involved.”
‘Help that family in crossing’
When death is inevitable, Ingram said, “We’re trying to help that family in crossing.”
A chaplain meets the family at the hospital entrance and escorts them to the patient’s room for the final farewell.
“That’s just tough,” she said. “… It’s just difficult. … You don’t talk, unless they want you to. You just walk with them.”
If they ask for a prayer, Ingram said, “the 23rd Psalm always works.”
She also might offer, “Lord, go before us as we take this walk.”
Ingram felt God put her in the right place at the right time when one of the medical teams had a rough time absorbing the death of a patient while one of the team members also was struggling to deal with her husband’s COVID-19 infection.
A team member requested Ingram to meet with them before their next shift.
“We talked, and we listened,” she said. “It was an opportunity for everybody to be heard. ‘This is what I’m scared of.’”
Ingram talked to the team like a cross between a pastor and a coach.
“The world doesn’t look the same to me anymore,” she recalled saying. “The floor doesn’t seem as solid anymore. But you’ve got to trust that God will give you what you need to take you to the next place. You lost a patient. God’s going to take care of that too. How do you refocus to get back in the game?”
Weeks later, Ingram recalled, one of the team members told her, “Chaplain, when this COVID is over, I’ve got a big ol’ hug for you because that was just what I needed on that day. I work in medicine, but I’m scared, and there was nobody I could admit that to.”
Ingram beamed and said, “That warmed my heart.”
