Religious faith is a vital force in life—influencing, among other things, health and wholeness. When a health crisis occurs, the crisis also affects you spiritually. Your faith is your most important resource to assist you in facing the crisis and dealing with the spiritual aspects of your health.
The Department of Spiritual Care offers spiritual support and care to all people during medical crises. If you require specific spiritual services, a chaplain will arrange for these.
To receive spiritual care, ask your nurse to request a chaplain, or call Spiritual Care at 1-319-356-2523 or 6-2523 on a hospital telephone. Chaplains are available for ministry 24 hours every day.
Our chaplains recognize the importance of faith in facing a health crisis, and they offer spiritual support, care, and counsel to assist you with spiritual issues related to your illness and hospitalization.
Working with you and your family, they can help by:
- Finding meaning in your illness
- Drawing on your religious faith to help you cope with your illness and the stresses that can accompany it
- Providing sacraments and religious rites, rituals, and practices that provide spiritual strength in crisis, as well as everyday living
- Counseling for the emotional and spiritual distresses of illness and for the strain they add to relationships
- Consultation for processing the teachings of your religious tradition regarding medical decisions, ethics, and matters of conscience
- Support in dying and while facing death; and for families in their grief immediately following the death of a loved one
- Being a bridge to your religious community or congregation, and to your clergy or spiritual leader
