Place for Religion in Hospitals

Healing Hospitals The United States is teeming with many people that are religious and/or spiritual in nature. In addition to that, many hospitals are owned and/or operated by religion-oriented groups with Jewish and Catholic hospitals being two of the more prevalent examples. These two facts in conjunction are very inter-related because many people associate healing with religion and many hospitals are beginning to actively embrace that in their operations and procedures.

To be sure, not all people are religious and religious wishes and preferences, whatever they are, should be honored by a hospital caregiver irrespective of whether the beliefs of the hospital are different from the patient. However, for those where faith and healing working together are a mutual goal of the patient and the medical staff, scholarly research shows it can be embraced, if for no other reason that it keeps everyone positive and upbeat despite medical challenges.

While there are obvious limitations to when and how religious practices should interweave with medical care, they should not be shied away from if there is any emotional or spiritual benefit to employing them while administering care. Analysis The components of a healing hospital are actually not all that complicated. As advanced by Ashcraft, Anthony and Mancuso (2010), hospitals are starting to embrace the dual-front care strategy of healing and spirituality as a way to keep spirits high and help the patient.

Indeed, they state that if having a spiritual environment for a patient helps them in any way, they are all for instilling and including that into the care provided. Indeed, the Joint Commission Standards and Elements of Performance note that one's spiritual outlook absolutely affects and guides a person's views towards their care strategy and overall outlook. Rather than ignoring that or resisting it, it is seen by many as a natural progression to embrace that fact and craft a counseling and advice strategy on that being the case.

Rather than allowing healthcare programs to just boil down to the "nuts and bolts" of the care and nothing else, a healing hospital (or other medical environment like a mental health center) should absolutely try to help heal and help the whole person rather than just focusing on the disorder.

An obvious reason for this is that a person that faces medical struggles with optimism and faith will almost always do better overall than someone that does not and hospitals and other medical professionals should integrate into the care rather than ignore it. A key part of making that work is distinctly and specifically asking the patient what their medical preferences are. If they do not, they could foist religious views on someone that believes something else entirely.

For example, while Jews and similar to Catholics in some respects and Baptists have some similarities to Muslims, there are also major differences and stepping on the proverbial toes of people in that way is exceedingly unwise (Ashcraft, Anthony & Mancuso, 2010). To prevent hurt feelings and religion-related problems, it is best to just pause and sit down with the patient and find out what their feelings are, their fears are and how the medical staff can best soothe them.

Sure, there are some general tactics that can assist just about anyone. However, everyone is different in one way or another and this is even true of dealing with people of the same religion or sect. Whatever can be done to assure people that religion will be used only to help, but not certainly not hurt, a patients feelings (let alone their health) should be the natural order of things in a healing hospital.

The most important thing at that point is the person's care and absolutely nothing should supersede that as doing so is a violation of both medical ethics as well as the ethics of a Christian (as well as that of most other people, most religious and non-religious). One very important question to ask is to fetter out how a patient personally views their religion and spirituality. Some people strongly link them and refer to them in much the same way but others do not.

As such, it is important to ask and then listen (Ashcraft, Anthony & Mancuso, 2010). As intimated above, there are some barriers to getting a "healing hospital" and/or any sort of spirituality in place. One reason is religious freedoms and the restrictions on government-agencies and/or people that work with the same involving religion in care.

One example of this is the fact that many hospitals are publicly run and/or operated and many atheist groups perceive any religious involvement from a hospital to be unconstitutional at the federal level because it supposedly violates the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. For example, a cross being present anywhere in public view in a public-run or -- owned hospital could almost certainly enrage an atheist or at least possibly offend them.

This could actually happen in privately-owned and run hospitals as well as Muslims need medical care, as one example, and many religious hospitals are Methodist, Baptist, Catholic or Jewish. Another barrier to implementing "healing hospitals" and spirituality in general is that there is not a ton of research on the subject, as mentioned by Linda Dunn in a recent editorial. She states that she did a search on the subject and found very little material to comb through (Dunn, 2010).

Even so, there are hospitals out there that are actively embracing and attempting to be trailblazers in the field. One example would be the Mendocino Coast District Hospital. They actively use tactics like healing touch and guided imagery to soothe and help people of all images to help calm them and prepare them for what they are facing but not in a jarring or abrupt way (MCDH, 2010).

Indeed, preparing the aesthetics and "feel" of a hospital or other care area such as a mental health professional's office can have a lot to do with how apprehensive and shy someone can be. If they feel at ease and feel that their care is paramount, they are much more likely to open up and/or relax (Eberst, 2008). Of course, running into people of no faith or another faith should have no bearing on the quality and quantity of care provided and this is firmly ensconced throughout scripture.

But one example of this would be Philippians 2:4, which states "do not merely look out for your own.