Hospital(ity)

Despite a wet day, a gathering several hundred people strong took place outside the town hall this afternoon. I encouraged our folk to attend the rally is support of hospital services in Bowmanville and Clarington. Our community has a population of 30,000 and the municipality is more than 80,000. We may not be a major centre but we need a hospital that can provide adequate beds, an emergency room, and the services of specialists. There has been growing concern that the effectiveness of our hospital will be undermined by reduced medical services brought about by budget pressures.

Why would I attend a hospital rally and suggest others do so as well? There is a strong connection between care for the body and care for the soul. When people are not well, physically, it affects their spiritual well-being, and vice versa. When people are sick and hospitalized they are often scared and want the support of their faith community. It sure doesn't help when the hospital is half an hour from home, rather than in town. From my practical standpoint, I can be much more effective in providing pastoral care if I am minutes away from the hospital. And I appreciate the scale of the hospital here.

It's easy to forget that hospitals began as an extension of the hospitality (ring a bell?) of convents and monasteries. Monks and nuns were often the people with the greatest medical knowledge and it was a ministry of compassion. Read the Brother Cadfael mystery novels to get an entertaining picture of the role religious communities played in the medieval world. While hospitals today are usually state run, names such as Grace and Hotel Dieu are reminders of the work done by the Salvation Army and the Roman Catholic church to establish hospitals in days past. Our United Church ran hospitals in coastal British Columbia and Newfoundland for decades.

Any opinions on the subject of hospitals in smaller centres? Any testimonials about the value of those hospitals?