People now spend less time in the hospital and more recovering at home, says Diana Vidlak, chaplain at Lankenau Hospital, Philadelphia. To see that both patient and family have enough support, congregations can: Be in contact with the patient, who often can't return to church for weeks and could drift away from the congregation.
• Maintain a file on members' next of kin or other emergency contacts. Today's mobility means many don't have family members nearby.
• Keep track of people with chronic illness, especially the elderly.
• Help members develop advance directives. "Will they be happy on a respirator the rest of their life? Will they be happy being fed with a tube?" Vidlak asks. "We need to start talking about these things before people get into the hospital."
A common thread of grief and loss runs throughout her work, says Diana Vidlak, an ELCA chaplain at Lankenau Hospital, Philadelphia. Families lose loved ones. Patients lose control of their lives. "They lose dignity with such things as the little gown that doesn't quite cover," Vidlak says. "They may have lost a body part and the power to do what they used to be able to do." Out of that loss, Vidlak says, come theological questions: "Where is God? Why did God do this to me? Why doesn't God change this?
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