Spiritual Care
When faced with a life limiting illness everyone, whether religious or not, needs support. Many people have spiritual needs and welcome spiritual care when they are:
- Facing difficult questions about life and death.
- Searching for the meaning in their illness.
- Looking for help to cope with their illness and with suffering, loss, anxiety, uncertainty, despair, anger and guilt.
Many people find it helpful to talk to a member of their own belief or faith group. If you already have a strong faith, it may give you a lot of comfort and support. Some people find that they start to question their faith.
If you think that it might help you to talk to a religious leader don’t be put off because you aren’t sure what you believe or haven’t worshipped anywhere regularly. Most faith groups are used to dealing with uncertainty and are usually happy to talk to you and give whatever support and comfort they can.
Each Health Board in Scotland has a spiritual care service. Usually this consists of a small team of chaplains and sometimes a team of volunteers. They are normally employed to look after and promote the spiritual needs of the whole community regardless of the individual’s beliefs or faith. Whenever a belief or faith group representative is needed, the spiritual care service – the chaplains – can help you find the appropriate person. Most departments have a list of contacts from the various communities and some have a system of honorary chaplains for each faith community which has requested it.
It may be that you find support from talking to friends or one of the medical team looking after you or a self help group such as Maggie’s Cancer Centres – wherever you find support it is important that it meets your needs and helps you face the journey before you.