AHW provide professional Chaplaincy Coordination and expert consultants. Additionally, they provide an external organisational professional support network, professional development and education, industry engagement, financial support and assistance to the Tasmanian Health Service (THS) – providing emergency relief funding to patients and their families in financial distress, physical resources and additional paid chaplains from external funding. AHW also have connections with other Chaplaincy services around Tasmania and nationally. These additional resources and networks provide a significant boost to the THS ability to provide Chaplaincy services.

Recognising that Spirituality and spiritual values are an intrinsic aspect of each person’s being, humanity and essence and holistic wellbeing the RHH Chaplaincy Service has adopted the following:

Purpose, Vision, Mission & Objectives

Purpose: To provide Spiritual & emotional care for the patients, visitors and staff of the Tasmanian Health Service

Vision: That every patient, visitor and staff member experience Compassionate Spiritual & emotional care.

Mission: To Intentionally engage with and facilitate Professional, best evidence-based spiritual-care practice for patients, visitors and staff members.

What this means?

Our vision is to be a beacon of compassionate support and spiritual guidance enriching the lives of patients, their families, and our entire healthcare community. A healing safe space where the holistic needs of each individual are recognised, respected and nurtured through the transformative power of Spiritual Care. A service that provides professional and intentional listening with compassion and empathy for people.

Our mission is to provide unwavering spiritual care and support to patients, their families, and the health care community. Rooted in compassion and inclusivity, our Chaplaincy Service is dedicated to enhancing the overall healing experience by addressing the diverse spiritual, emotional, and psychological needs of all individuals we serve, guided by our values of Spiritual Centredness, Compassion, Intentionality and Professionalism and provide a unique and safe space for the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of the THS community.

Objectives:

• To provide compassionate spiritual and emotional assessment, support, comfort, guidance, healing, nurturing, reconciliation, sustaining, liberation[1] and rituals (prayer, worship, sacraments etc.).
• To provide education and counselling on spiritual/pastoral care and issues
• To connect the THS Hospital Communities (individually and corporately) with local faith communities and facilitate access of a patient’s minister of religion or faith leader if requested.
• To provide consultation on ethical issues and concerns and complex decision making.
• To provide respectful spiritual care and counsel, irrespective of faith or belief systems.
• To provide support for healthcare staff, as part of the interdisciplinary team.
• To provide advocacy for patients.
• To provide specialist spiritual care to end-of-life and palliative care services for grief, loss and bereavement support.
• To provide services of worship and sacraments in the Hospital Chapel/s and on wards as required.
• To provide a 24hrs per day, 7 days a week Chaplaincy ‘On-Call’ service.

The THS Chaplaincy Service has the following CORE Values:

• Spiritually Centred in all we do and in how we do it.
• Compassionate towards all those in hospital and those who care for them.
• Intentional in being aware of the spiritual needs of the THS Community and engaging people in addressing these needs.
• Professional in striving for the highest quality best practice and excellence in providing Spiritual Care.

Spiritual Care & Health

Spirituality is “a dynamic and intrinsic aspect of humanity through which persons seek ultimate meaning, purpose, and transcendence, and experience relationship to self, family, others, community, society, nature, and the significant or sacred. Spirituality is expressed through beliefs, values, traditions and practices.”

A person’s spirituality is intrinsically tied to a person’s physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing. It is a person’s framework for understanding the world and their part in it; how they are connected to the world, the environment and their relationships (family, loved ones, friends, acquaintances) and where and how they belong in the world. It describes how they see and understand things that are greater than themselves.

Being in hospital and faced with the challenges of illness, trauma, crisis or mortality can and often causes people to question their spiritual worldview, their relationships, their roles and function in society, their understanding of God or transcendent things and bring about an existential crisis that can have impacts on their hospital and healthcare admission. The impact of an admission to hospital can affect both the patient and their families and the staff of the healthcare system that cares for them. Admission may compound fears, anxieties, distress, anger, sadness, depression and other strong emotions that can negatively impact treatments and health outcomes. Conversely, caring for the spiritual aspects of a person’s hospital admission may help reduce the negative impacts and promote positive wellbeing, more effective response to treatments, shorter length of stay and even associated cost savings.

Caring for a person’s spiritual wellbeing therefore is an integral component of comprehensive health care services. The importance of Spiritual Care for the holistic care of patients is increasingly recognized in research, literature and standards for health care[3]. Tasmanian Health Service (THS) Hospital Chaplaincy Services are committed to providing best practice spiritual, emotional and religious care for patients, visitors and staff of the THS community.

Faith based organisations and Chaplains may have their own theology of care for people who are hurting or in crisis or in hospital. Local faith communities may also have their own beliefs regarding visiting the sick and those from their own congregations who are admitted to a healthcare facility.