IDEAS THAT WORK
William Folprecht
July 1, 1981
William Folprecht is a retired pastor who lives in East Northport, New York.
"I've been in three or four hospitals, but this is the first time a minister has visited me!"
That was the comment made by a woman recently to one of the thirty-four local ministers engaged in our community hospital chaplaincy program. It's only one of many remarks we've received indicating the need for hospital visitation.
Some hospitals maintain a full-time chaplain on the premises. Ours has a Roman Catholic priest, assigned by a large congregation in our town, who gives all of his time to visiting the patients of his faith. But there was no provision on the part of the hospital for ministers to call on out-of-town or locally unchurched Protestants. I had been part of such a chaplaincy years before in Schenectady, New York, so another minister and I decided to challenge our local pastors to implement this needed visitation.
John Durokovich, secretary of the Huntington Clergy Association, and I discussed the matter. Then we talked with the administrator of the Huntington Hospital. At first he was hesitant, and John thought he might be afraid we would be "too evangelistic." From John's experience as head chaplain at a nearby hospital, he was aware also of the harm a good-intentioned but ill-advised person can do to a patient.
Although we could have gone ahead on our own and sent pastors in, we felt we should have the full acceptance of the administrator, and he finally gave his approval.
Letters were sent to forty-three ministers in the area describing the idea. A return card was enclosed on which the pastors were to indicate if they were interested in visiting one week every six months, making calls twice in that week. In this way we hoped to secure ...
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