As a man lay dying of COVID-19 at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, hospital chaplains Marie Coglianese and Bob Andorka stood just outside his room, praying and singing.
They held up a phone so his mother and sister could hear. The man’s mother asked to talk to her son, so the chaplains allowed her voice to flood through the room’s intercom system. They did the same for his sister.
In a time when hospitals must enforce strict no-visitor policies due to the coronavirus pandemic, hospital chaplains are finding creative ways to fulfill their role as spiritual guides, providing comfort and making sure the unthinkable doesn’t happen. No one should die alone.
“That becomes their story then,” Coglianese said of the dying man’s family as she described their interaction. “They were able to (be there) ... but we were their eyes. We were there with him.”
“What’s different for us now,” she added, “is we are in the moment trying to decide, what’s the best way to add compassion for this patient? We’re learning as we go.”
The man, whom Coglianese described as young, died soon afterward. His family was able to stay on the phone as he slipped away, Coglianese said. Then, she talked to them about their loved one and asked how else she could help.
The chaplains are used to dealing with families in times of tragedy, but now the pace and intensity are heightened, Coglianese said.
“This is so different because the families can’t be here,” she said. “We’re used to seeing their eyes and giving them a hug. Now we have to do this all verbally.”
Coglianese, 61, Loyola Medicine’s regional director of spiritual care and education, leads a team of 28 chaplains serving Loyola, along with Gottlieb Memorial Hospital in Melrose Park and MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn. The team works on rotating shifts 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and is paged every time someone dies, for every “code blue” and when traumas come into the emergency department. They’re alerted by hospital staff when a patient takes a downturn or is facing something difficult, and offer help to the patient and the family.
They also are called to help noncritical patients when they’re feeling anxious, scared or simply want a prayer or a moment of peace. Chaplains come from various faiths and are trained to serve all religions, along with those who don’t identify with any. The Loyola Medicine chaplains not only complete their certification training, but also train to be in a clinical setting and have at least a master’s degree.
Clinical chaplains are used to working in high-risk situations, but the coronavirus pandemic has created challenges and restrictions they’ve never seen.
At Loyola, like most hospitals, chaplains must stay just outside the room of a patient suspected of having COVID-19 and have to wear masks and gloves. When nurses go into a patient room, Coglianese and her staff will hand them prayer cards to give to the patient, or ask if the patient wants to talk to them on the phone.
Andorka, 61, who is typically assigned to the emergency department or intensive care units, said patients awaiting COVID-19 test results are especially anxious. And those suspected of having it have unique worries.
He said he recently spoke with a man suspected of having the virus who was about to be discharged but wasn’t sure where to go. The man didn’t want to infect his elderly mother whom he cares for in his home.
“‘What do I do? I can’t go back home,’” Andorka said the man told him. “It’s a situation that I’m finding as we talk to people. It’s not just the impact on the patient. There’s other complications from this.”
The chaplains also are serving the hospital staff during this especially trying time, Coglianese said.
As the virus began to spread and worry started to grow, Coglianese bought 60 pounds of Life Savers candies. The chaplains slip a handful in the pockets of their blue lab coats and hand them out to staff throughout their shift. “We go up to staff and say, ‘Thanks for being a lifesaver,’” she said, adding that the candies aren’t just for doctors and nurses but for all staff members, including housekeeping.
The chaplains also have staff members fill out cards, writing down something they hope for, and the chaplains take the cards to the chapel and say a prayer.
They’ve seen the stress of the pandemic weighing not only on the staff, but also on patients in the hospital for reasons unrelated to COVID-19.
Sister Xiomara Méndez-Hernández, 45, a chaplain who works mainly with cancer patients at Loyola, said she recently spoke to critical patients who could not have visitors, which is leading to fear and isolation. “‘I feel lonely,’” she said one patient told her. “‘This is killing me.’”
Méndez-Hernández said she also talked with two women on the phone whose mother recently died at the hospital, unrelated to COVID-19, and they were not allowed to be there with her. “I’m sorry you lost your mom and you were not here,” she told them.
“I think I’ve never prayed so much in my whole life,” she added of her recent weeks working in the hospital.
At Rush University Medical Center, the Rev. Mishca Smith, 53, is one of 12 chaplains. She agreed that while the pandemic is creating challenges, it’s also inviting creativity.
Smith said she’s used iPads to communicate with patients and families and is “really leaning into being present when you can’t be present.”
“If I’m face-to-face with someone, I can get cues from a furrowed brow or their eyes looking out and up or a smile on their face,” she said. “But in a phone conversation ... I really have to let the silence be there because I don’t know when they’re thinking or they’re not.”
She said she invites family members not able to be with loved ones in the hospital to “name their feelings, even if it’s anger.”
And Smith said she can see the stress on patients when she can’t come to their bedside to offer support or a prayer, and she invites them to talk about it.
“When engaging in it, we’re just engaging in the abnormality of the times,” she said. “We’re just acknowledging this is something very stark and different than what we’re used to ... (and) how hard and stressful that is.”
Smith said she’s also sure to make up for the fact that patients can’t see most of her face because it’s behind a mask by nodding or otherwise showing them she’s engaged and listening.
Andorka, at Loyola, said the creativity leads to new ways to connect with people, amid all the uncertainty and chaos.
“And in the chaos, there is God,” added Coglianese.