Salvation Army lets go of Grace Hospital
WINNIPEG, MB--In October the name "Grace Hospital" will be removed from The Salvation Army's last general hospital in Canada.
On April 1, more than 100 years after they founded it, The Salvation Army handed over the management of Grace Hospital to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA).
The Salvation Army is still in charge of the hospital's spiritual needs and will keep a seat on the hospital board.
But the switch has already impacted the spiritual care department. Because the WRHA is contracting the Grace's spiritual care to The Salvation army, five part-time and casual spiritual care staff on the payroll of the WRHA found themselves without a job in March.
That leaves the spiritual needs of the patients and staff at the 270-bed hospital and the Grace Hospice in the hands of the four remaining full-time Salvation Army chaplains.
Jon Einerson, spokesperson for the Grace, says the hospital has "no concerns" about the future of spiritual care at the hospital.
"I don't forsee any diminishment in care as a result of the change," says Susan van Duinen, divisional commander for The Salvation Army, Manitoba and Northwest Onario.
The Salvation Army is currently accepting applications for two part-time spiritual care positions and two or three casual workers, says van Duinen. She couldn't say whether The Salvation Army will rehire any of the staff whose positions were cut.
The terms of the agreement between The Salvation Army and the WRHA will be finalized by July 1.
In the meantime clergy who volunteer at the hospital are helping carry the extra workload.
"The staff at Grace do a lot of extra work," says van Duinen. They often use their own time to connect with families and conduct funeral services.
Chaplains at Grace visit patients, hold chapel services, respond to emergencies, help patients deal with fear and anxiety, counsel hospital staff and arrange visits from other clergy at patients' requests.
In times of death, chaplains administer last rites, help families deal with grief and hold funeral services.
"The presence of Salvation Army and Catholic and other faith organizations in hospital care is ebbing all around," says Jim Read, a professor at Booth College who directs the Salvation Army Ethics Centre.
Until now Grace has had a larger spiritual care service than other hospitals, Read points out. He expects to see spiritual care become more equalized across the board. "What I would want is that the value and importance of good spiritual care-that we'd see it rise over the region, not that it would come down," he says.
The Misericordia hospital, also operated by the WRHA, is slightly smaller than Grace with 228 beds. It has three full-time chaplains.
Historically, most of Winnipeg's hospitals were founded by religious orders. The Grey Nuns founded the St. Boniface Hospital and the Misericordia Sisters started the hospital that bears their name.
But as the hospitals were handed over to the public, and religious orders that once met patients' spiritual needs dwindled, spiritual care became the work of paid chaplains.
"Now we have to develop [hospital spiritual care] as a discipline," says Rosie Jacuzzi, the spiritual care lead for the WRHA. The province of Manitoba is working toward standardization, she says, but right now each hospital hires as many spiritual care workers as it feels it needs, relying to varying degrees on volunteer clergy in the community.
"We're working towards standardization," says Jacuzzi, "but we're not there yet."
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