Florida Catholic | Parish Nursing

Parish nurses offer spiritual healing

AMY M. FERRARA | FLORIDA CATHOLIC STAFF

Published: 10.26.07

Diana Odenbrett looks on as a nurse from Baptist Health Care checks pastor Msgr. Luke Hunt’s blood pressure during the Oct. 13 health fair at St. Ann Parish in Gulf Breeze. The health fair, staffed by parish nurses, offered information on nutrition along with various tests.
COURTESY PHOTO

PENSACOLA, GULF BREEZE | Recovering on her own from knee surgery, a parishioner at Little Flower Church in Pensacola couldn’t perform daily routine tasks. She needed help. A parish nurse responded.

Because of the vision of Granger Westberg, a chaplain at Lutheran General Hospital in Chicago, parish nursing has been an integral part of numerous local faith communities for 35 years, including many area Catholic churches.

Parish nursing is “a holistic approach,” explained Cheryl Pilling, community wellness outreach coordinator at Sacred Heart Health Care System. Pilling oversees Sacred Heart’s parish nurses for the various participating churches. “The primary focus is on the spiritual aspect of a person’s health,” she continued.

Still, a parish nurse, also known as a faith-community nurse, will perform noninvasive procedures such as blood-pressure screenings. He or she will also organize educational speakers to address certain health-related issues and present practical information, such as financial planning for the aging.

Because most of these nurses have full-time or part-time nursing positions outside of their parish responsibilities, the time they give is agreed upon between the church community and the nurse. Parish nurses who work with the Sacred Heart Health Care System volunteer their time and talent. Some hospitals, however, offer paid parish nursing systems, and some parishes grant nurses stipends. Many parishes also provide funds for vehicle fuel, renewal of malpractice insurance, license renewal, and office and patient supplies.

According to need, nurses will often organize additional volunteers within the parish to help with other tasks, such as card ministries to recognize births and deaths.

At Little Flower, Cindy Castellano has helped to organize the parish’s nurses since the program began at the church five years ago. They work closely with Sacred Heart to provide parishioners services such as diabetes and osteoporosis checks.

One man, she explained, discovered that he was a diabetic after the parish nurse screened him for the disease. He would not have known, she added, if he had not taken advantage of the services provided by the parish nurse.

Castellano and the other nurses also offer annual physicals to Little Flower students.

“Being nurses,” she said, “it’s inherent to serve. It’s great to serve your own parish. It’s an extension of my spirituality.”

Working for Sacred Heart, parish nurses can also participate in ElderCare Health Recovery Project, a pilot study addressing elders who are over 60 years old and leave the hospital to reside in a place without a capable care provider. St. Mary Parish in Pensacola is one of the parishes that participates in this service.

Several months ago, a member of the parish had hip surgery. According to Pilling, the parishioner had no insurance and had recently relocated to care for a family member, who eventually passed away. When the parish nurse visited her, she was living in a small, poorly maintained house that had unlevel surfaces and steps, which were obstacles during her recovery. She had also run out of pain medicine, insulin syringes and other medical supplies.

While visiting the patient, the parish nurse learned that the woman had not attended her post-surgical visit because she could not pay. The nurse, Pilling said, informed the ElderCare staff as well as the clinic staff who provided this patient’s primary care services. Soon the patient had syringes, alcohol swabs and a syringe discard container. The clinic staff made arrangements for her post-surgery visit, and provided the medications she needed.

Parish nurses also focus on health awareness to help patients avoid having to take medication in the future. Diana Odenbrett and other parish nurses at St. Ann Church in Gulf Breeze offered their services at a health fair Oct. 13. Sixty-five people attended the event in the parish’s family life center. There, Baptist Hospital personnel performed stroke-assessment tests and Sacred Heart Health System offered blood-pressure screenings, body-fat tests and a mobility instructor for arthritis patients. Teresa Torbert, a St. Ann parishioner and physical therapist, informed visitors about proper nutrition.

The parish nurse program began at St. Ann 12 years ago, and Odenbrett has been a part of the staff since April.

“It’s a gift from God that I’m a nurse,” said Odenbrett. “I wondered, ‘How can I give back my gift?’”

While working each week as an employee for Sacred Heart, Odenbrett doesn’t always have time to sit and talk with patients. But as a parish nurse, she said, “I can go into the hospital, sit with people and pray.”

For information about becoming a parish nurse, e-mail Cheryl Pilling at cpilling@shhpens.org or call 850-416-7000. Patients were not identified in this article due to privacy reasons.

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