The church is learning how to raise puppies as part of St. Paws, a program training dogs to help people in wheelchairs open doors, turn on lights, move laundry baskets and more. Parishioners also are learning how to prepare their own pets to be canine companions in hospital visits. Alzheimer’s patients and others with memory loss, especially, find pets calming, notes parish nurse Dianne Foglesong.

Local high-risk teens will participate in the canine work. Teens in such programs usually benefit from improved attendance, feelings of self-worth and, to a more limited degree, grades, Foglesong says.

St. Paws is one example of how three Episcopal churches are seeking to meet the health needs of parishioners and community members. Much more common is St. Paul’s assistance in guiding people to governmental resources such as Hoosier Healthwise, a statewide program that supports Medicaid and helps women, children and families find affordable clinics.

“A person is given a family doctor, so they don’t have to go to the emergency room when it’s not an emergency,” Foglesong says.
Similarly, the health ministry at St. Luke’s, Baton Rouge, La., connects parishioners with SenioRX, which helps seniors obtain less-expensive medications. “It does all the legwork for them,” says Becky Williams, parish nurse. “I had one parishioner say, ‘You don’t know how much money you’ve saved me.’”

Williams estimates that amount is “a couple of hundred dollars a month” for the chronically ill member of St. Luke’s, who lives alone and has “an extremely limited income.”

Another resource that Williams uses for health-care support is a virtual clinic in Baton Rouge. “It’s an organization of doctors and dentists who donate their time to caring for the working poor.”

Training parish nurses
In Utah, parish nurse Susan Fischer of  the Cathedral of St. Mark in Salt Lake City  expanded her ministry across the state by training nurses. Also a pastoral care nurse and chaplain at the city’s St. Mark’s Hospital, Fischer has helped educate more than 42 nurses.  “In 1999, I founded Rocky Mountain Parish Nurse Ministries,” she says. “It’s an organization which offers support and education for other nurses interested in becoming parish nurses and promoting health ministries in their own faith communities.”

The nonprofit RMPNM is open to all faith communities. It follows International Parish Nurse Resource guidelines and works within the scope of practice established by the American Nurse Association.

As diocesan liaison for Episcopal Health Ministry in Province VIII, Fischer hopes to mentor, educate and encourage other nurses and congregations in their search for individual health-ministry development.

In her hospital ministry, Fischer finds she can bring understanding about issues of isolation, abandonment and faith. “Offering prayer and pastoral listening enables one time and sacred space to heal. Often the spiritual piece of who we are gets left out at the hospital, and the physical piece gets left out at church.”

Encouraging lifestyle changes
While these initiatives focus on restorative health, Foglesong calls preventive health just as important.

“Our strategies in health ministry are rejoicing, protecting and preserving God’s gift of health,” she says. “We feel an obligation to help people understand how to make lifestyle changes. We should be asking, ‘What can we do?’ not just, ‘What can the government do?’”
“We’re teaching how to manage health or illness,” she says. “A new diabetic is a classic case, balancing food, activity, medication and routine.

Lack of compliance [with taking medication] is a huge issue for prolonged illness. We ask, ‘What is your biggest barrier,’ and then help them get over or around it. The problem is similar to healthcare access. People without funds may be compliant with only part of a prescription or with only part of the medical program beyond the pill.”

Parish work is rewarding, nurses say. Concludes Williams, “This is truly the best way to use the gift of being a nurse.”