Wednesday, October 3, 2007

MD. Chaplain gets the boot for halting Christian bible placement in hospital

MD. Chaplain gets the boot for halting Christian bible placement in hospital
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Friday, September 21st, 2007
From JewsOnFirst
As director of pastoral care for a community hospital in Maryland, the Rev. Kay Myers halted the placement of sectarian Christian books in patients’ rooms.
Myers said her decision was one of the carefully measured steps she had taken during her seven-year tenure to move her department to a professional level of pastoral care. The hospital’s response was not so measured. The CEO immediately countermanded Myers. Within months she was forced to resign.
The Presbyterian Rev. Myers, in her seventh year directing the chaplaincy at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, had objected to some specific problems: the Gideons had been placing Bibles by going room to room, and she was concerned that this was a violation of HIPAA, moreover, the infection control center at the hospital had sent out an email recommending against placing the books in patients’ rooms because they might harbor long-lived pathogens, which CEO Alan Newberry simply ignored, even after Myers also forwarded him a report from an onlne chaplain bulletin board discussing the same topic.Rev. Myers also felt that since the Bibles that the Gideons were distributing were only a New Testament and Psalms, and the hospital is a community hospital, significantly supported by public funds including Medicare and Medicaid, and hospitals with such finding must declare that they do not discriminate, it was inappropriate to have such sectarian emphasis, particularly since the facility is the most advanced in the area and locals do not have an easy alternative to Peninsula
Rev. Myers remains adamant that that a “market-place ministry” such as a hospital chaplaincy must be nonsectarian. “It needs to be carried out with best practices, with professional standards,” she said. “I do believe that people in the hospital need spiritual support. But you need to meet them where they are — not try to pull them along to where I am.”

2 comments:

josh_shneer said...

Firstly, I would like to start off saying a few things. Rev. Myers was out of place by halting the placement of sectarian bibles in hospital rooms. He went out of his way to make sure that these bibles were not a part of every room. I can see that she might have been looking out for the community as a whole, seeing as not everyone is a devout Catholic persay, and that not everyone would want ta bible in their room.
Conversely, I think that the CEO of the hospital was wrong to repremand her in such fashion as to sack her immediately. She might have done wrong in the eyes of the CEO but what about the those who do not want a bible in that room. Why not place a sefer Torah, or a Koran in the room. Because there is separation of church and state in the US, it seems fitting that there should not be sectarian bibles in every room. If a patient in that community hospital wants to pray or read the bible, they can just as easily ask for one. Hospitals are community based institutions and should uphold the idea that they need to act for everyone not just the majority.

elana said...

Personally i think it was wrong for the chaplain to be fired. She had gotten information about the health risks that the bibles can cause and in a hospital where the health of the patients is most important. Furthermore I don't think its right that in a community hospital where there are a number of different religions, only the New Testament is handed out. There should be choices at the hospital that offer the holy books of different religions. It can make people feel uncomfortable having a bible from another religion in their hospital room because it could make the non Christian patients think that Christianity is important.