Clinical pastoral care: focus on patient wellbeing

Because of Corona, this year’s meeting of the clinic pastors of the diocese of Würzburg took place on Friday, November 13th as an online event, as the diocese announced in a press release. 35 people took part in the event with the motto “Patient welfare as an ethical standard for hospital pastoral care”. “The unusual virtual format of the symposium has made it clear how necessary personal contact and informal exchange is among the clinic chaplains,” says pastoral consultant Wiltrud Stoer, head of hospital chaplaincy at the Aschaffenburg-Alzenau Clinic.

Gwendolin Wanderer, research assistant at the Medical Ethics Unit in Clinical Pastoral Care in the Department of Catholic Theology at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, responded to the opinion of the German Ethics Council published in April 2016 and focused it on the role of clinical pastoral care, it continues. In the German hospital landscape, complaints about the shortage of skilled workers, the overloading of the health care staff and the dominance of economic interests, the German Ethics Council noted, according to the diocese.

The patient’s well-being, the human being as a whole fades into the background? also due to a lack of communication and highly specialized medical care. According to the communication, patient groups with special needs, such as children and adolescents, the elderly, people with dementia or from other cultures, were being disregarded.

Clinical pastoral care is of particular importance

Clinical pastoral care is of particular importance in hospitals, as their perspective, time and conversations contribute to a holistic perception of the patient. Clinical pastoral care, which is in intensive communication with the patient and the staff, could widen the view for the concerns of the individual patient, his interests, his stories and values, his “well-being”, so the message.

This is ethically required with regard to the individual patient. It is about “successful life” also and especially in illness. This perspective broadens the horizon of often purely medical-ethical questions and case discussions in the clinics. At the same time, it is important to be on the move with solidarity, hands-on and as an advocate for the “well-being” with a view to the institutions, and to think carefully about where and how this can best work.

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