(Sherbrooke) Why me? What is after death? What is the meaning of disease? It is not with a doctor or a nurse that we discuss these questions in a hospital, but with a practitioner in spiritual care. A service as little known as it is essential.
Posted yesterday at 8:00 a.m.
Last September, my mother was hospitalized at the University of Sherbrooke Hospital Center (CHUS). Suffering from advanced cancer, she knew that the end was approaching and she had fears… “But what will happen next? »
Her friend, a retired nurse, then suggested that she meet a former colleague, spiritual care worker (ISS) Stéphane Rivest.
“A care worker what? »
My mother and I were unaware that such a profession existed.
“A lot of people don’t really know what we’re doing,” recognizes Stéphane Rivest, whom I interviewed at the CHUS five months after seeing him help my mother leave in peace.
The term “spiritual care” can even put off some people, especially in Quebec, where the relationship with religion is complex. “Spirituality in the field of health is the meaning of existence, how illness comes to question our values and our beliefs, the meaning of our life, and the relationships with our loved ones, explains he. We are in the existential dimension and not in the psychological dimension, for example.
“Unlike other caregivers, we have all our time with the patient. We are listening and welcoming, but not smalltalk, he specifies. That is the role of the volunteer. We, our title says so, we intervene… We facilitate the expression of vulnerability in illness. »
If the spiritual care provider walks with the patient to try to reconcile him with what he is going through – a chronic or fatal illness, an amputation, etc. –, he does not trace the path for him… “We are in another form of helping relationship. We don’t have a schedule. We do not impose anything…”
Recently, Stéphane Rivest had to go to a woman who had just learned that her husband – with whom she had had an accident – had died. He stayed with her when it was necessary to call the parents of the deceased to tell them the tragic news. Isn’t it sometimes difficult to intervene?
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Stéphane Rivest, spiritual care worker at the CHUS
There is a great intensity and intimacy in these moments. We are made for it or not. We see death a lot, so we have to be at peace with it.
Stéphane Rivest, spiritual care worker at the CHUS
Clinical effects
After working in the field of construction, Stéphane Rivest had “a spiritual quest” which prompted him to obtain a bachelor’s degree in theology at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières (UQTR) without really knowing where it was going. lead.
He was then a teacher, but he wanted to have a more significant impact on people’s lives. A friend then told him about an open position at the CHUS as a spiritual care worker (ISS). “I didn’t even know it existed,” he says.
At that time, in 2011, the profession had just changed to “non-denominational” services. In fact, the ISS have replaced chaplains and pastoral animators in the health network.
You have to put your own spiritual perspective in the background.
Stephane Rivest
Stéphane Rivest confesses that he had to adapt to a changing profession. However, the latter quickly saw the benefits of meeting the spiritual needs of patients. Studies even show that it has a clinical effect, he argues. In medicine, the approach is very “bio-medical”. “But disease doesn’t just affect the body. The person, in all that he is, is affected by the disease. »
Stéphane Rivest is a lecturer at the Center for Contemporary Religious Studies at the University of Sherbrooke, where he gives a graduate internship to become an ISS. He teaches mindfulness meditation to medical school students.
What does he insist on with his students? “Welcome people as they are. »
“I emphasize the importance of supporting the gaze of a person who is suffering in a comforting way,” explains Stéphane Rivest.
Our job is not to relieve the suffering of the other, but to accompany him in his suffering.
Stephane Rivest
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Stéphane Rivest also accompanied people alone until their last breath. “In the first waves, patients hospitalized with the virus were stigmatized, he still laments. We may be contagious, we are human. »
“To be in relation, from a philosophical point of view, is to exist. There is the whole notion of dignity that is affected when one is considered as an object that one does not want to touch. »
Stéphane Rivest intervenes on request. Or if a nurse sees a patient cry after the announcement of a diagnosis. He also often introduces himself to patients. “Often, just by talking about their disease and naming things, people understand each other better and they are more at peace. »
The worker helps patients to see things more clearly, but also their loved ones. A sentence he said to me will remain forever etched in my memory. “Your mother left as she lived. Loving and well surrounded. »
Who are these stakeholders?
There are some 300 spiritual care workers (ISS) in the province’s health network. Some are members of the Quebec branch of the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care, but not all. There is no professional order. It is since 2011 that the ISS are engaged by the State in the same way as psychologists or social workers and that their category of employment is part of the Act respecting health services and social services of Quebec. There are always members of religious communities who are in office, but their service must be non-denominational. ISS have also denounced certain discrepancies in a report published in La Presse in 2019. Before the pandemic, the Ministry of Health launched work – which will resume shortly – to standardize the practice of spiritual care.