By Stuart Overlin, NurseZone
contributor
Parish nursing combines health and religion to
promote the physical and spiritual well-being of a congregation. Identified by
the American Nurses Association (ANA) as a nursing practice role in 1998, it is
an emerging trend in today’s health care environment. Estimates place the
number of parish nurses practicing in the U.S. at around 6,000. Although deeply
rooted in Protestantism, parish nursing is an interfaith movement that has
spread to Canada, Australia and other parts of the world.
SILVER SPRINGS, Md.—Five years ago, St.
Andrew’s Lutheran Church was seeking a more active role in the health of its
1,000 worshippers in this suburb of Washington, D.C. The church council
experimented with a Health and Wellness Committee before deciding to take on a
parish nurse as a ministerial staff position. Their choice was Marilee Tollefson,
RN, a worshipper at St. Andrew’s and former Army nurse with over 30 years of
experience in pediatrics.
Tollefson accepted, but the retired colonel
didn’t feel completely at ease with the role until she completed a seminary
postgraduate class in parish nursing. Today she considers grief counseling and
bereavement support her most rewarding experience as a parish nurse.
"It really fills the gap for families that
are overwhelmed by the loss of a loved one," she said. "Our presence
has been very supportive to them, and we’re always available as an ongoing
support resource."
The healing mission of the church is not a new
one, but one might say that the pioneer of contemporary parish nursing today is
the late Dr. Granger Westberg.
Westberg, a Lutheran minister and hospital
chaplain, began opening free health clinics in the Chicago area during the
1950s. The clinics relied on financial support and volunteer efforts from
community hospitals and churches. One thing Westberg came to recognize was the
special ability of the nurse to integrate faith with medicine.
"Nurses seem to have one foot in the
sciences and one in the humanities, one foot in the spiritual world and one in
the physical world," he told one interviewer. By combining three
fundamentals—holistic health care, faith, and nursing—Westberg created the
general framework of parish nursing.
A variety of parish nursing arrangements exist.
Some nurses, such as Tollefson, are part of a church’s paid staff. Others work
for a local hospital that places them with a congregation. Still other parish
nurses practice on a part-time, volunteer basis.
Typical parish nursing functions involve basic
health promotion and disease prevention such as home visits with the elderly,
blood pressure screenings, health fairs, diet and exercise workshops, CPR
classes and providing referrals to medical services. And, of course, prayer.
"So much of it is presence, listening and
giving comfort," said Mary Slutz, RN, director of parish nursing at Trinity
Regional Health System in Moline, Illinois. "Most nursing is task-oriented,
but with parish nursing you have to turn the tasks off sometimes."
Naturally, the functions performed by a parish
nurse will vary according to the needs of a particular congregation. Dena
Mashburn of Baptist Hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee, coordinates the work of
four parish nurses in the community. Baptist Hospital’s relatively small
network covers a broad demographic span—from senior citizen health programs to
prenatal clinics aimed at the younger congregations, and from rural care to an
after-school program for inner-city children. Common to each, however, is the
emphasis on faith and community.
"The medical world is an institutional
model, and a lot of it is subject to time and money constraints," said
Mashburn. "Because parish nursing occurs in the community, the nurse is
able to focus on prevention; things like visiting one of our elderly women
regularly, making sure that the house is safe and she’s eating properly. Often
the medical world can’t look after these people, and they end up in a downward
spiral."
And in an era of cost containment, where
preventive care is essential, the parish nursing approach makes financial sense
as well. As Ann Solari-Twadell, director of the International Parish Nurse
Resource Center in Park Ridge, Illinois, said, "It’s a response that is
very fit for this time."