Spiritual Care

Spiritual care is person-centered care provided to meet a suffering individual’s needs in the present moment.

Spiritual care is essential in providing quality health care for patients and their families and is supported in the mission of the Indian Health Service (IHS). At PIMC, spiritual care is provided by the Spiritual Care Department and the Traditional Cultural Advocacy Committee. These services are for the medical center’s patients and staff, working to sustain a presence of spiritual and cultural awareness and well-being. Our chaplains and traditional elders are committed to providing spiritual care that is responsive to and respects diversity and takes in account cultural perspectives and language needs.

Knowing When to Seek a Chaplain

The role of a chaplain is to recognize spiritual distress in patients, families, and staff and help them move toward the potential for spiritual wellbeing, achieved through the sensitive application of spiritual care.

Spiritual distress – a state of suffering related to the impaired ability to experience meaning in life through connections with self, others, the world, or a superior being. Spiritual Distress often shows up as:

• Anger at God or Higher Power
• Loss of trust in religion or a person’s faith group
• Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness
• A sense of having nothing to hold on to
• Looking for answers to the big questions:
  • “Why is this happening to me or my loved one?”
  • “What did I or we do wrong?”
  • “Am I or are we being punished?”

Spiritual Wellbeing – occurs when a person can once again experience integrating meaning and purpose in life through connectedness with self, others, art, music, literature, nature, and/or a power greater than oneself.

PIMC Spiritual Care Team

To reach a member of our PIMC Spiritual Care Team during regular business hours, Monday-Friday, 7:00am - 3:30pm, please call 602-581-6587. For spiritual care emergencies, please notify the nurse manager and they will take the appropriate action needed to request chaplain services. If you are a patient in the hospital or in the outpatient clinic, please ask the nurse or another staff member on your care team to place a consult for spiritual/pastoral care or they can reach the chaplain directly by phone. During the weekends or after-hours for emergent or urgent requests in the hospital, the nurse can contact the on-call chaplain to support you.

***Please DO NOT email visit requests or patient related information. We will be able to respond to your request more quickly if you leave us a message on our voicemails.*

Volunteering

If you are interested in becoming part of the PIMC Spiritual Care team, please email us at PIMCSpiritualCare@ihs.gov.