IF ALL goes according to plan, Kelowna General Hospital could be advertising for a chaplain by later in the spring, according to the Kelowna Evangelical Ministerial Association’s representative on the hospital’s spiritual care committee.

Lester Mesenbrink told BCCN that things were looking good with respect to moving on the long-awaited filling of the hospital’s chaplaincy role.

While no one could actually confirm that the chaplaincy item will be in the budget, Mesenbrink noted that, during the last few years, the hospital leadership had done much to build goodwill and trust with a wide range of spiritual leaders in the Kelowna area.

Mesenbrink, who has been senior minister at Bethel Church for the past 13 years of its 81-year existence, recalls that things were not always as good with regard to spiritual care at the hospital.

Several years ago, provincial regulations and policies surrounding related issues caused some tension between the institution and the community’s spiritual leaders.

In more recent years, an ‘on–call’ policy has prevailed, while clergy and hospital officials worked toward a rapprochement that would hopefully lead to a full time chaplain and related ancillary services.

The people available to be on–call usually number around nine. Some are retired pastors; others still carry regular clergy duties in their own churches.

Notes Mesenbrink: “It means that the on-call people sometimes have to come at late hours to handle emergency situations. And, as well, they sometimes need to provide spiritual counsel to doctors, nurses and other hospital workers who, themselves, need a chaplain.”

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He points out that KGH is emerging as a teaching hospital and has  growing ties with UBC Okanagan and the university’s medical faculty, with prospects for heart surgery facilities and other increased services.

Those factors, together, will likely increase the size of the hospital by at least one-third. It presently has around 700 beds – slightly over one-half in acute care, and the remainder extended care.

The push for a chaplain peaked last spring, when the spiritual care committee made a written proposal to hospital leadership, complete with a 5,000 signature petition. Many of those signatures had been gathered from members of Kelowna’s 60-plus congregations.

Mesenbrink said that by last fall, indications were very positive that the proposal had been well-received.

The on–call system and spiritual care committee is actually managed by Bev Dahl, of the hospital’s community services.

The committee itself draws from four ministerial groupings – evangelical, mainstream Protestant, Roman Catholic and a community clergy group in Westbank, across the Okanagan Lake from Kelowna.

One aspect of the chaplaincy requiring gradually increasing attention, according to Mesenbrink, involves seeing that patients who have non-Christian religious backgrounds get the spiritual care they need.

While the on–call system itself is mainly Christian, the process is eased by the fact that the hospital has built a good data base of spiritual leaders of other religions who can be contacted in short order.

   – Lloyd Mackey

February 2008