After Jonathan Blackburn, director of pastoral care at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Golden Triangle, was assured that no one else had a prayer to offer up, he dismissed the gathering of about two dozen hospital doctors, nurses and staff and noted the brevity of the prayer service held Monday in the hospital lobby to mark a grim anniversary.
“That’s OK,” he said. “Some of the most powerful prayers I know have been five-second prayers lifted up in a moment of crisis.”
No doubt, untold scores of those kinds of five-second prayers have been offered up at Baptist hospitals throughout the South over the past 12 months. Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 case in the hospital system. All Baptist hospitals held a simultaneous prayer service at 11 a.m. Monday to mark the anniversary.
As of Monday, the Baptist hospital system has treated more than 14,000 COVID-19 cases. BMH-Golden Triangle admitted its first COVID-19 case on March 20, 2020. As of Monday, it had treated 979 cases with 188 deaths.
The emotional burden of caring for COVID-19 patients may have fallen most heavily on the doctors and nurses with direct contact with patients, but Blackburn said the toll of the pandemic has affected everyone on staff, including himself and Lonnie Cook, the hospital’s chaplain.
“It’s been a challenge for all of us,” Blackburn said. “But we’ve pulled together and leaned on each other to get through this time. I would say the overarching thing we’ve learned is just how much we need to be there for each other. We couldn’t have made it in our own strength. It’s been leaning on the Lord and linking arms with each other.”
The most challenging and, at times, most-heartbreaking obstacle has been the lack of contact with patients necessitated by the virus, Cook said.
“It’s just adapting and using the skill set we’ve been trained in as much as we can,” Cook said. “We’ve been doing walk-through touches, FaceTime, things like that. We can’t go into the patient’s room, but we can stop outside the room and pray or pass a note if they are able to communicate. We’re doing little things intentionally to touch the patients, the staff or the family.”
In the early days of the pandemic, Cook said his role as a chaplain was expanded in another way.
“Early on, there was so much confusion about the virus,” Cook said. “The CDC would say something one day, something a little different a couple days later. Then there was so much misinformation out there that it was hard for people to check it out. It created a fear environment that we saw in our pastoral care, too. So as we gather information as a staff, we are able to share that with others and calm fears. Now, we are able to say, ‘This is what we know, what we’re doing. This is what’s working and how it’s able to help the patient.'”
R.L. Minor’s job is to distribute supplies through the hospital. In that role, he seldom comes into contact with COVID-19 patients or their families.
Even so, he said, the impact has been plainly visible throughout the hospital over the past year.
“It’s affected everyone, been hard on everyone,” said Minor, who said a prayer during Monday’s service. “I see it on the faces of just about everybody I come in contact with. It’s not just the doctors and nurses. It’s been hard on all of us, emotionally.”
Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
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