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Hospital Chaplaincy in Sweden

There is much to be said about the history of Hospital Chaplaincy in Sweden. This description starts in the 1960s.

From that time a number of clergymen in the Church of Sweden devoted themselves to Hospital Chaplaincy as a full time occupation.
There was no formal education for Chaplaincy. A few Chaplains went to USA to attend Clinical pastoral education (CPE) to some extent. A working group within the Svenska kyrkans Pastoratsförbund (an Alliance of the parishes in the Church of Sweden) started to organize conferences once a year from 1969 and onwards. Those conferences have been very important meetings for the hospital chaplaincy in Sweden over the years.
In the 1970s there was an emergence of a new category of chaplains. Both deacons and non ordained chaplains were employed by the local parishes, which determined the qualifications for the job.

In 1974 a governmental committee was appointed which should give proposals how to solve the new needs in Chaplaincy. At the same time there was a committee in the Church of Sweden which suggested a professional education. In 1979 the proposal was made and the main new feature was that the responsibility for Hospital Chaplaincy was to be shared between the Free churches and the Church of Sweden. The ecumenical base is very important.
During the 1980s there was a consolidation of the new organization. A new professional education was created. Standards for co-operation in hospitals were adopted. A central office for the Free church chaplains and another for the Church of Sweden were set up. Through close cooperation it was possible for the two secretaries to establish a well functioning ecumenical hospital chaplaincy.

The Church of Sweden and the Free churches work close together in teams in the hospitals. The Roman Catholic Church is represented in just a few teams, mostly in larger hospitals. The orthodox churches in Sweden have one part time chaplain, hopefully more in the future.
There are today approx. 350 ministers, pastors, deacons, non-ordained chaplains, musicians etc working in hospital chaplaincy on a full time or part time basis. Most of them are organized in the Association of Health Care Chaplains within the Church of Sweden or in the Association of Free church Chaplains in Health Care.

The churches involved in Hospital Chaplaincy are the Baptist Union of Sweden, Church of Sweden, Interact, Methodist Church, Pentecostal Church, Roman Catholic Church, Salvation Army, Serbian Orthodox Church, hopefully more to come, Seventh Day Adventist, Swedish Alliance mission, Swedish Covenant Church and Vineyard.
In addition to this there is one part time imam at the hospital in Skövde and three part time Muslim coordinators for hospital spiritual care in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Örebro.
In 1999 – 2000 the professional education in Hospital Chaplaincy was revised. The new course plans for Pastoral Care and Counselling in the Public Health Care Service focuses on the following three targets:

You can read more about the new education on the web site www.diakonistiftelsen.se/andligvard

The Standards for Chaplaincy in Health Care are under revision.
During the last years health care in Sweden has undergone a great change. The number of beds in the hospitals as well as the nursing time has been cut down. The patients are more and more treated in their homes by nursing teams and by their relatives.
Those changes in health care must have an impact on how chaplaincy amongst sick is to be formed. The responsibility for the religious and spiritual care are not a question only for those who work with chaplaincy in hospitals but to an increasing extent a question for the local parishes, the clergy, pastors, deacons and lay persons.
How to deal with those questions are main tasks for me as a coordinator for Hospital and Health Care Chaplaincy in the Church of Sweden and for my colleague Gunnel Andréasson, coordinator for Hospital and Health Care Chaplaincy in the Free churches.

[November 2012]


Åsa Jonsson

I am an ordained minister in the Church of Sweden and have for thirty years been working as Chaplain at the University Hospital in Uppsala. In 2008 I changed working place from the busy hospital to another setting, still in Uppsala, but now at Samariterhemmet, a former deacon training institution, now a place for different kinds of diaconal work, for instance city mission, home for patients with dementia diagnosis, the Church of Sweden Centre for Hospital and Health Care Chaplaincy and so on. My responsibility is also to be Chaplain of this house.
Right now I'm busy with the work after the Scandinavian Conference for Hospital Chaplaincy that took place in Jönköping, Sweden, June 15th -18th. About 100 persons gathered. Every third year we meet for a Scandinavian Conference, next time it will take place in Denmark.


Rev Åsa Jonsson
Coordinator for Health Care Chaplaincy in the Church of Sweden

[May 2008]

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Rose-Marie Eriksson

I have been working as a deaconess in the hospital church, at the hospital located in Eskilstuna, since 1998. The hospital is called “Mälarsjukhuset”. Before this I worked as a trained nurse in Stockholm and Strängnäs for many years.

In 1993 I wrote a book for small children about a little boy with astma, “Markus blåser” (ISBN 91-86058-36-3). The idea was to make small children understand why to medicate with inhalors withholding cortisone and bronch dilating drugs.

In 1997 I was ordained in Ersta, Stockholm. After that I was employed in Södertälje, as a deaconess, for eight months.

In Eskilstuna we usually are a team of four persons; one chaplain, one deaconess, ½ cantor and music therapist, all employed by the Swedish Church, and also one pastor (Baptist minister). We no longer have a chaplain from the Finnish congregation, but both the chaplain and I speak Finnish so I think we’ll manage anyway.

For several years I and my colleague deaconess (retired in May 2010) had groups for maltreated women and therefore had cooperation with the police, social services and the office of the public prosecutor etc. We also had groups for children and youths who by death lost close members of their family.

My work today is mostly related to patients in psychiatric care, emergency and accident patients but also medical, surgical and cancer patients. Some of the patients are refugees.
We serve patients as well as relatives and hospital staff and we are also asked to deliver lectures of various kinds.

 I am an elected representative for the Nurses Union. For some years now, I’ve also been a member of the committee of SKAIS (The Association for Hospital Chaplaincy in the Swedish Church) and 2007 I became vice president.

Rose-Marie Eriksson
Deaconess in the hospital church for the Church of Sweden
Eskilstuna

 

[September 2010]

Jan Bränström

Jan is the Chair of SKAIS, the Association for Hospital Chaplains in the Church of Sweden.

[November 2012]

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Gunnel Andréasson

My name is Gunnel Andréasson and I am a pastor of the Baptist Union of Sweden. Since July 2004, I work as Coordinator for Health Care Chaplaincy within the Free Church Council of Sweden. The Free Church Council of Sweden include churches of different confessional families such as Methodists, Baptists, Reformed and Pentecostals. Common for them all is that they have their roots in the 19th century revival movement in Sweden. They were counted as “free churches,” in relation to the Lutheran Church which until year 2000 was the state church of Sweden.

Assignment
Before entering the position I have now, I was International Mission Secretary for the Baptist Union of Sweden. Before that I have been serving as pastor in local Baptist churches. My work assignment is within three major areas: Hospital chaplaincy, extramural (health care) chaplaincy and relations with people representing other religions, especially Moslems, in the area of hospital chaplaincy.

The assignment could be described as follows:

1. In consultation with an elected committee, allocate the state subsidy given to the ministers of the Free Church hospital chaplains, as well as to the Catholic chaplains and the Orthodox chaplains. Related to this task is also to keep a regular contact with the chaplains through visits, circulars and other forms of communication.

2. In consultation with another committee, encourage the churches in Sweden to develop and strengthen work in the field of extramural health care and to do so on an ecumenical basis.

3. In contact with different Moslem organisations in Sweden, encourage the Moslems to strengthen their involvement within the spiritual care at the hospitals and to find ways for cooperation in the hospitals between Moslems and Christians. At the moment there is one Moslem hospital chaplain working part time at a hospital in the southern part of Sweden. Three more positions are in preparation. In the latest year I have also assisted the Stockholm Synagogue in developing a project within the area of hospital chaplaincy.

Ecumenical health care chaplaincy in Sweden
Hospital chaplaincy in Sweden is ecumenical and has been carried out in co-operation between the Church of Sweden and the free churches since the beginning of the 1980s. Today an increasing number, although still few, of catholic priests and nuns are being incorporated in the work. Since year 2007 there is also one orthodox priest working as hospital chaplain in the Gothenburg area. All together there are about 350 people working in connection to hospital chaplaincy in Sweden, representing the Lutheran Church, the Free Churches, the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches. The chaplains from the Free Churches, the Catholic Church and the Orthodox churches are mainly pastors, priests and catholic sisters. Together these groups include a little over 50 co-workers. The co-workers from the Lutheran church, totally a little less than 300 persons, include both priest, deacons, church musicians etc.

Extramural (healthcare) chaplaincy
At the moment there is a movement within the Swedish state health system, with the implication that an increasing number of sick people are cared for in their homes and in special living in municipality. A challenge is thus to encourage churches to address this partly new situation, searching for methods of meeting the spiritual needs of people in this particular circumstance.

Looking at the future, a hope is that a larger number of chaplains from the Catholic Church and the Orthodox and Oriental Churches in Sweden, will be incorporated in the work. A hope is also that we will find practical, effective and acceptable forms for co-operation with the Moslems.

Some years back we revised the curricula of our pastoral care courses for health care chaplains. This is a program developed in cooperation between the Lutheran Church (The Swedish Church) and the Swedish Free Church Council. However the intention is that it should serve the Catholic Church and the Orthodox- and Oriental churches as well. Drawing conclusions from the revision that was done, we are confident that it has been constructive and that the course program that is offered, is a good presupposition for enhancing the competence of our chaplains and their quality of work.

Rev Gunnel Andréasson
Coordinator for Health Care Chaplaincy,
The Free Churches' Council of Sweden
 

[May 2008]

Carl-Axel Skoeldeberg

Carl-Axel Skoeldeberg writes: " been a pastor in the health care chaplaincy at St Goran's Hospital in Stockholm since 1992. Before I began here I worked as Baptist minister for 18 years. I work in a team with two hospital chaplains from the Church of Sweden. The first 9 years St Goran's was most known as the Children's Hospital. Today it is well known for it is the first private emergency hospital in Sweden with a European Healthcare Company as owner. Capio St Goran provides healthcare and diagnostics services for public and private customers. All patients are welcome and given care on equal terms.
Most of the time my work is related to cancer patients, as well as to accident and emergency patients. Usually I meet patients on the wards in pastoral care, nurses and doctors in reflection groups were we discuses ethical and existential questions. I am also the leader for the psycho trauma team on the hospital in case of catastrophe.
Since 1992 I have also followed patients from the emergency hospital to the hospice on the other side of the street.
FAS, is The Swedish Free Church Hospital Chaplains Association with about 50 members. I became president 2007.
 

[May 2008

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