An assessment of factors mitigating against chaplaincy services in Adventist Hospital Ile-Ife of Osun State, Nigeria

Abstract

In achieving the mission of Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) Church, the church adopts healthcare and spiritual care for patient, patient relatives and clinical staff. The SDA Hospital, Ile-Ife is widely known as a result of the work of Dr. Madgwick who was the health secretary of the general conference at the time, who came to Nigeria in 1939 to conduct a feasibility study to determine an appropriate location for the anticipated medical institution. The SDA hospital at Ile-Ife was foremost healthcare facility established by the church for members of community at large. It at a time cover the space of whole Nigeria as patient comes from all over the regions of Nigeria to access medical care, especially members of the church. In order to achieve its goal, Spiritual work and healthcare have been adopted side by side. With the improvement of healthcare, there is a necessity for professional pastoral caregiving in the hospital. The case in the SDA Hospital at Ile-Ife is unique. The church and hospital management sees the vacuum of needing pastoral caregiver identified as a chaplain which steps were taken to address the need. But it’s not been optimally used because it's sometimes limited to conventional ways of ministry, prayer and devotion, hereby, making it just a "fill in the gap" ministry. Pastors without chaplaincy experience or having undergone clinical pastoral education were posted by the conference to serve as chaplains without formal training. Other aspects of care have been left to the expertise of the medical workers. This call for assessment of healthcare chaplain to identify factors that could be mitigating against chaplaincy services in providing whole person care in the recovery of patients in the hospital. To attain the findings of the research, literature was widely consulted on professional healthcare chaplaincy which presented rise to the qualitative approach in the research. Research questions were intended to determine the factors mitigating against chaplaincy services in SDA Ile Ife. Participant feedback identifies factors limiting chaplaincy services in SDA Hospital Ile Ife, and the need to provide holistic healing for the patient, patient relations and, hospital staff through spiritual and emotional care. This necessitates quick action in the employment of a trained chaplain or training the current chaplain of the hospital who has the calling and qualities of a chaplain to provide adequate spiritual and emotional services beyond prayer which he is known for.