I’m pointing to this piece from Saudi Gazette/Okaz not to castigate Saudi preachers, but to note that I’ve seen the same behavior on the part of some Christian preachers as well, and in the US. The British have an appropriate term: God botherer. Now, those who are facing potentially terminal diseases may well wish to get their spiritual affairs in order. But it should be done at the patients’ request and on their time table, however risky that might seem to others. People trying to get physically well may not choose to dwell on their sins or the afterlife.
Hospitals warned about ‘preachers’ terrifying patients
Faleh Al-DhabyaniJEDDAH – The Ministry of Health has warned oncology hospitals about people who claim to be volunteer preachers visiting cancer patients and terrifying and intimidating them by reminding them of their imminent death and the countdown of their remaining days.
According to Okaz/Saudi Gazette sources, Ministry of Health officials found that these people enter the patients’ rooms and demonstrate the methods of forgiveness while concentrating on the nearness of their fates.
These actions, which have annoyed and shocked many patients in the hospitals and their relatives, also affect the patients psychologically and affect their chances of recovering.
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September:26:2010 - 09:16
Interesting, and especially targetting oncology hospitals where both patients and staff are vulnerable. A psychiatrist I worked with in Hong Kong, which has a huge number of religiously affiliated hospitals of all denominations, told me about patients coming to her and complaining of the chaplain at one we both worked at. He would force himself into long discussions with patients who are a captive audience by virtue of being bedridden, or at least hampered in their escape by politeness, limited hiding places, and hospital gowns. One patient finally got the courage to loudly tell him to leave.
Once when my Dad was in hospital, about 5 years ago, my mother and I went to visit and he was “in conversation” by someone asking social work type questions, and asked to have a few more minutes. We left for a coffee, with me thinking he was one of those rather unctious types of social workers who wants all patients to talk about their feeeeeeeeelings, no matter how relevant or not, and no matter whether they have any particular feeeeeeelings that they want to shaaaaaaare at the moment or not. However, we didn’t want to interrupt patient care, so off we went.
When we got back, my father reemed us out, because he had been cornered by a hospital chaplain, who was being intrusive and annoying. On top of it all, the man was a Protestant chaplain from the interfaith chaplaincy service of the Catholic hospital, and my father’s chart was clearly marked that he was Catholic. He didn’t want any chaplaincy visits, and if he were to have them he would have preferred to importuned by a Catholic priest.
Ironically, this past winter, I had to work hard in the same hospital to get him the chaplaincy visits he did want. The difference may have been that in the earlier stay he was being investigated for cancer, and in his final hospital stay it was clear he didn’t have cancer.
In that sense, this type of abuse of a captive audience is one of the lower forms of ambulance chasing. Lawyers who convince schizophrenic patients to sign out against medical advice or go against their mandated hospital stay, when they are clearly incompetent are lower.
Volunteers may lack the counselling skills that bonafide chaplains do have, and the ones described in the article seem determined to sap any remaining hope from patients and families. Hope is even more important in Arab and Muslim medical ethics than it is in other schools and practices of ethics. Dreadful!
September:26:2010 - 09:37
Many years ago, one of my aunts was dying of cancer. She found herself being importuned, in the hospital, by a Catholic bishop who had been sent by her brother, a missionary to Native Americans (and who operated under the bishop’s oversight). The bishop was a real pain, haranguing the patient to repent of her sinful past, and was clearly making a bad situation worse. It ended up with my grandmother, then in her 80s, tossing the bishop out on his butt. I mean physically tossing him out, not metaphorically. Don’t know–and don’t particularly care–what that did for my uncle’s missionary career, but it made my aunt’s last days a bit more comfortable.
September:26:2010 - 10:04
Yes, but then again you know the reputation that goes with being an 85-year-old lady. Who knows what she was doing late at night when she was not pretending to be dying of cancer on a hospital bed. It is well known fact that people in that situation never reflect on their lives and destiny. The good bishop was just trying to make her think of her immortal soul for a few seconds, instead of planning the next escapade into the wild lifestyle so common among people of that age. Give the guy a break!
Actually, this is another reason I despise 99.9% of clergy. Most of them are in no position to lecture us on our sins and lifestyle. Witness the guy in Atlanta, the Jesse Jacksons, the Cardinal Ratzingers, the pedophile priests, the Imans that preach hate, the rabbis that steal, the gay preachers that condemn the sins of others, and so on. I think Jesus said it very nicely when he stated that religious leaders were the walking dead (or something like that).
adpastors that sell holy water take
September:26:2010 - 11:02
John–your grandmother was an exemplar of patient advocacy in action! Vulnerable patients need family around to run interference. Usually diplomacy suffices, but sometimes actions speak louder than words.
As for your uncle, at least the Native American population no longer burn missionaries at the stake. Ste Marie Among the Hurons is a famous site of a 17th century French Jesuit mission where 8 priests were eventually martyred. Fortunately, the beautiful “Huron Carol” survives.
September:26:2010 - 11:26
While a student at a Catholic school in Massachusetts–with lots of Canuck-derived classmates–we got the (or at least a) full story about Jesuit martyrs in Canada and the American ‘West’ (of the time). Nuns certainly do love their martyr stories…
September:26:2010 - 13:10
Ah, you have been well-schooled then. In public schools we learn of the Jesuit Martyrs because they were so seminal in the history of New France. In the seminary sponsored schools in Quebec they learn a “bit” more!
September:26:2010 - 13:50
“we got the (or at least a) full story about Jesuit martyrs in Canada and the American ‘West’ (of the time). Nuns certainly do love their martyr stories…”
Are these anything like the nun & Jesuit stories Thomas Pynchon writes of in Mason & Dixon?
September:26:2010 - 13:56
Very much like them, in fact, but more lurid.
You really haven’t plumbed the depths of something-or-other until you’ve had a Passionist priest get rolling on his theme during Lent! Very vivid on what happened to members of the order in Mao’s China, too!!
September:26:2010 - 14:52
A fascinating topic, indeed, John.
I went looking for news reports of a Christian equivalent without much success — but did come across a British National Health Service manual entitled Religion or Belief: A Practical Guide for the NHS, which contained these observations:
Members of some religions, including Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, evangelical Christians and Muslims, are expected to preach and to try to convert other people. In a workplace environment this can cause many problems, as non-religious people and those from other religions or beliefs could feel harassed and intimidated by this behaviour. This is especially the case when particular views on matters such as sexual orientation, gender and single parents are aired in a workplace environment, potentially causing great offence to other workers or indeed patients or visitors who are within hearing. To avoid misunderstandings and complaints on this issue, it should be made clear to everyone from the first day of training and/or employment, and regularly restated, that such behaviour, notwithstanding religious beliefs, could be construed as harassment under the disciplinary and grievance procedures.
http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_093133
I’m also reminded of the response a patient made when Mother Teresa said, “You are suffering like Christ on the cross. So Jesus must be kissing you.” Apparently the patient replied: “Then please tell him to stop kissing me.”
http://atheism.about.com/library/books/full/aafprMissionaryPos.htm
I imagine there have been cases where a “deathbed conversion is appreciated, and places where the very attempt is a violation of the patient’s final days.
Michael Ruse in a blog post on the Chronicle of Higher Education site quotes an anecdote that supports one such intervention:
A nurse, a black Protestant lady, rushed in, took her hand and said, ‘Julia! Julia! Jesus loves you and died for you. Do you accept him as your lord and savior?’ … Julia answered in the affirmative. She then was quiet and at peace for a few minutes, then died. I believe her conversion was true, and effective, and that that nurse, whose name I never learned, was an angel of mercy.
He also cites an anecdote that leans the other way:
When my wife Lizzie was in hospital earlier this year with heart trouble, the evangelizing ghouls were circling. She had to be really quite rude to a couple to get them to back off. After that she noted a significant chill in the air coming from the nurses’ station.
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Justification-by-Faith/26122/
What can we conclude?
Perhaps, with Lao-Tse, that the path that can be mapped in advance isn’t necessarily the way to go.
September:26:2010 - 16:16
I think the take-away is that some followers of religion get caught up in the religiosity and not the message of the religion. It’s one (annoying) thing to have a proselytizer ringing your doorbell to bring your his message. It’s quite another thing for him to do it while one is struggling to hang onto life in this world. Some might welcome it, but I suspect most would find it intrusive and unwanted at best.
September:26:2010 - 16:20
A friend of mine, also a psychiatrist, has had major medical problems, and been on death’s door more than once. She requires highly sub-specialized care. All the nurses on that unit are Afro-Caribbean Canadians who are evangelicals. All have a “Jesus loves you” or “Jesus is your saviour” prominently displayed beside their name tag and on a lanyard.
My friend thinks an orderly was an angel sent by God to her when she was in a bad way. I think she was delirious; however, the orderly did encourage her to embrace God–not her regular lifelong Eastern Christian God, the Evangelical one. A friend from her ethnic group was her major support through that particular time, and “encouraged” her to attend church–not the same ethnic Eastern Church they were both raised in, the new and improved Evangelical one for their ethnicity.
Often a nursing staff will have a group think on a topic–God, prayer and healing, circumcision, breastfeeding, fathers in the delivery room, psych meds, exercise–and woe betide the patient who doesn’t comply.