BUSTH Alums Ylisse Bess (STH’17) and Heidi Kugler (STH’97) Reflect on the Challenges of Prison and Hospital Chaplaincy During COVID-19
This article was originally published in focus magazine, the annual scholarly publication of the BU School of Theology, in May 2021. The full magazine is posted here and this article can be found on page 23.
Faith and Resilience in a Difficult Time: Two Alums Reflect on the Challenges of Prison and Hospital Chaplaincy During COVID-19
By Mara Sassoon
COVID-19 has so ravaged prisons— infecting inmates at a rate more than five times higher than the general population—that many states have been forced to release inmates early, slow down new convictions, or close jails altogether. The virus has also taxed hospitals in unprecedented ways, overwhelming their bed capacities, forcing them to postpone or cancel elective surgeries, and bringing patients and healthcare workers alike untold stress and grief.
In these fraught times, the work of prison and hospital chaplains, who serve as voices of comfort and hope in often-isolating environments, is of heightened importance.
“Chaplains are essential in traumatic times like this pandemic,” says Shelly Rambo, an associate professor of theology who helped design STH’s Master of Divinity chaplaincy track. “They meet people in moments of crisis or pain, and COVID has added a particular visibility to the important work that they are doing.” But it’s also added a lot of new stresses and challenges.
For Ylisse Bess, a multifaith chaplain at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, one of the toughest adjustments has been the lack of physical connection with COVID patients. With strict quarantines around COVID wards, she can only speak with them by phone. “It’s still powerful, but it’s just not the same as an in-person interaction,” she says. Bess (’17), whose role involves patient advocacy, says that these over-the-phone interactions require more prompting and deducing on her part. “If I was in person, I could see that someone looked cold and needed a blanket and I could get one for them, but patients don’t always say what is bothering them and, on the phone, I have to ask a lot of questions to figure something like that out. “Everything is different because of COVID-19,” she says.
Hospital Chaplaincy: Listening and Advocating
In March 2020, as hospitals began to admit more COVID-19 patients, Bess was forced to work remotely for two weeks while Beth Israel considered the best way to have its spiritual care team continue its work. She primarily visits cardiac patients and would normally go from room to room to check in on them. As a multifaith chaplain, she works with people of all religions, offering spiritual and emotional support. “Most of my job is listening to people,” she says. “In our everyday life, people don’t get a chance to talk about their grief and their sadness. All of us are struggling with something. I try to create a space for patients to talk about what they’re going through.”
“In our everyday life, people don’t get a chance to talk about their grief and their sadness. All of us are struggling with something.” – Ylisse Bess
Though she continues to meet with COVID-19 patients over the phone, after those two weeks were up, Bess was one of a few chaplains able to resume in-person rounds for non-COVID patients.
The pandemic has brought many changes, but it has also reinforced the importance of Bess’ role. Besides helping patients navigate their concerns and talk through their grief, Bess is an advocate for them and tries to make their visits as comfortable as possible. She often acts as a liaison between patients and other staff and medical professionals. “Patients want their healthcare professionals to ask them about their faith tradition, but that often doesn’t happen. And that’s a huge part of their life and their meaningmaking,” Bess says.
She checks that patients are getting proper meals that meet their dietary restrictions, religious or otherwise. “Another big question I ask is, ‘Is this what you want?’” she says. Sometimes patients are faced with medical procedures, such as blood transfusions, that might not be aligned with their religious beliefs. Bess works with doctors to make sure they are aware of conflicts like this and to facilitate other options. “It’s making sure that ethics are acknowledged,” she says. “It’s not just medical ethics. People have religious ethics, cultural ethics, and I make sure that’s a part of the conversation.”
COVID-19 has heightened the usual anxiety that might come from a hospital visit, and Bess works through these concerns with patients and their families. The virus has also compounded many issues of racism that Bess had been working to tackle before the pandemic. “Another inherent part of my work, as a Black woman, is supporting patients and staff of color,” says Bess. Black Americans are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, facing hospitalization rates 2.9 times higher than white Americans and a death rate 1.9 times higher, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because of systemic racism, “people of color, especially Black people, have every reason to distrust our healthcare institutions, and my job is to help our staff understand why they have that distrust.”
She connects with patients by asking them if they feel safe and comfortable in the hospital and brings the feedback she receives to staff meetings. “I try to make sure we’re always thinking about power and privilege and how we bring that into our interactions with patients,” she says. “There are people who need to be there to encourage everyone to think about deconstructing these harmful thoughts, which inform our treatment of patients and then lead to worse healthcare outcomes. A chaplain can do that.”
COVID-19 has underscored these issues. “I heard some xenophobic and racist comments in regular times, but COVID has intensified that. It was shocking to me,” says Bess. “I heard people referring to COVID as a Chinese disease or an Asian disease, and I had to pull people aside and explain why that is unacceptable, racist, and xenophobic.”
To further support fellow staff of color, Bess is cofacilitating an affinity space where staff can meet to discuss their experiences in the hospital. “Staff of color used to pull me aside in the hallway to talk, but now we have this safe space to gather. That’s our job as chaplains—we’re supposed to be conversation partners. We uphold ethics and we make sure that conversations are happening so that staff feel safe and patients feel safe and secure enough to get adequate healthcare. It’s so important.”
Prison Chaplaincy: Adapting and Lifting
As chaplaincy administrator for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Heidi (Schulz) Kugler oversees 252 chaplains across many faiths at 122 federal prisons. In March 2020, her office began helping prison chaplains find new ways to support inmates: worship groups and faith-based programs were moved outside, broken into smaller groups within housing units and chapel areas, or shifted to other worship formats. But Kugler (’97) says that chaplains have also continued to conduct in-person daily pastoral rounds—clad in personal protective equipment—since the pandemic began.
“COVID has challenged our ability to conduct inmate congregant worship and group religious programming, just as it has in the wider community,” says Kugler. “When inmates couldn’t gather in larger groups in centralized chapel areas for their congregant worship and religious studies across faith lines, the chaplains went to them to meet their spiritual needs. We are committed to ensuring that inmates’ faith practices are protected.”
“The pandemic has increased the need to provide spiritual guidance to inmates and staff as they process the additional losses and grief.” – Heidi Kugler
She says that’s been especially important for a population further disconnected from the outside world by a deadly pandemic. Many inmates have had to go without seeing loved ones as visitations have been shut down periodically. Some might have family or friends impacted by the virus, or might be experiencing outbreaks within their facility. “The pandemic has increased the need to provide spiritual guidance to inmates and staff as they process the additional losses and grief,” says Kugler, whose office created new religious devotionals and support materials specifically tailored to the pandemic’s consequences.
The chaplains have needed extra support, too. “Chaplaincy work is rewarding, but also inherently challenging,” Kugler says. Her office has connected them with mental health resources to address compassion fatigue and offered advice for healthy leadership strategies to help them cope with pandemic-related stress. “Having wellness and stress reduction strategies and resources is vital to chaplains in correctional ministry over time.”
Also of high importance for Kugler has been ensuring that faith-based reentry programs, which help inmates prepare for life beyond prison walls, continue uninterrupted. The programs—which are open to inmates of all faiths, as well as those with no faith affiliation— guide participants in addressing issues of personal growth and life skills. They complete interactive journaling workbooks, working with the chaplains, volunteers, and mentors on topics like spirituality, goal setting, reestablishing family relationships, and conflict management. “Pandemic or not, federal offenders will continue to release back into their communities,” says Kugler. “So we want to equip inmates with practical tools and real-life strategies for reentry success so they do not return to prison.”
The pandemic, she says, has been a lesson in faith and resiliency. “Through it all, bureau chaplains have emerged stronger, with our shared values and collective resolve sharpened to best care, inspire, and transform lives for the better.”