SPRINGFIELD — “Anticipatory grief.”
That’s what the Rev. Ute Schmidt said she senses from the people she takes to visit their loved ones dying of COVID-19 and other illnesses at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.
Like many hospitals around the country, Baystate Medical Center currently has a limited visitor policy that allows guests only in certain cases; those allowed on the premises include a partner for people giving birth, a parent/guardian for minors who are in the hospital and visitors who can come one at a time for those at the end of their lives.
Schmidt is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ and manager of spiritual services and clinical pastoral education at Baystate Medical Center. Now, part of her job as a health care chaplain is to escort visitors one by one to see their loved ones who are dying.
Schmidt takes the visitor to the loved one’s room and, in cases where a patient has COVID-19, she and a nurse provide personal protective equipment. While they walk to the room, she tries to support the visitor, talking to the individual about what to expect.
“We talk about what it’s like for them to help them articulate their feelings of anguish, of fear, of grief,” Schmidt said.
She helps the visitor think about saying goodbye. Make sure you tell them that you love them, she says. “Say something like whatever happened between us, I forgive you,” she suggests.
When she senses that the visitor is in anguish, “I also ask them, if it’s a wife, how long have you been married to your husband? How did you meet? We do a little bit of life review, if you want, to help them think upon the things they had in their lives,” she said. “It’s important to remind people that even though this is an unexpected death, as awful as that is, that there’s lived experiences and lived memory that will become so important to focus on in their grieving process.”
Walking the visitor to the room and facilitating one-by-one visits is one change the pandemic brought to her job as a Baystate chaplain. Another is that she’s not going into the rooms of those sick with COVID-19, which protects her and the other chaplains at the hospital and saves PPE that’s in short supply.
“We can find alternative ways,” she said of her work. “A nurse cannot find alternative ways to provide care virtually.”
She prays while standing right outside a patient’s room, door open, or over the phone. “As spiritual people,” she said, “we believe a prayer can travel through windows and doors and all that stuff.”
With COVID-19 patients who are alert, she can connect digitally through the phone, but she is not able to touch them — a significant change in her work.
“We do a lot of handholding,” she said of her job before the pandemic. “We do blessings where we touch someone. The human touch, we’re not doing that anymore. That’s really a loss.”
Since the pandemic began, more of Schmidt’s time is spent on the phone, digitally connecting with patients’ families. For example, she spoke to the wife of one COVID-19 patient who died early in the pandemic. The wife was not there when he died, but Schmidt told her that a patient care technician was present. “This PCT had sat in the room and held hands with her husband,” Schmidt said. “This really comforted the family member to know her husband was not alone.”
Schmidt eventually connected the PCT and grieving widow, who spoke over the phone. “They had an hourlong conversation, which was healing for the wife,” Schmidt said. “The PCT could tell her more of what she observed in the last few hours of his death at Baystate.”
Part of her job is also supporting the hospital staff on the front line of the pandemic. “For them, it is very difficult to now care for so many people who eventually die,” she said.
Sometimes, they feel helpless. “One nurse said, ‘There’s nothing we can do — ‘we cannot even comfort their families because they are not here,’” she recalled. Staff have been sending condolence cards to families who lose loved ones, she said.
Schmidt gives wrapped chocolate to staff and, for those who are religious, cards with blessings on them. “They can put it in their pocket and hold onto it. For some religious people, it is a reminder that they are held by something bigger than themselves.”
When there is a chance, she talks with them. “I also ask nurses: So, when you have a moment of relaxation at home, what do you do? To help them focus on something that hopefully gives them a moment of peace and relaxation.”
It’s a stressful time for many people, and she has advice for those who are anxious and frightened: “Ask yourself every day,” she said, “’what would bring me joy and a sense of peace today? And then do it.”
Though her job is difficult, Schmidt is finding moments of joy, too.
People are drawn more to each other than before the pandemic, she said. “I’m meeting more people who talk with me about all kinds of things,” she said. “There’s something really beautiful about that.”
Recently, she was in the elevator chatting with two other hospital staff members about the Beatles song “Yellow Submarine.” One of the women didn’t know the song, so, “We sang it to her,” Schmidt recalled. “We are trying to lift each other up.”
Greta Jochem can be reached at gjochem@gazettenet.com.
Editor’s note: The Gazette is working on a series profiling health care workers on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re trying to reach doctors, respiratory therapists, environmental service workers, certified nurse assistants and others. Please let us know if you would like to connect at newsroom@gazettenet.com.