mp24957 Chaplain Mag Summer 2005 new.p65 - Chaplains service

STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS
This intervention work is premised on the Chaplain General HIV &
AIDS Prevention Programme, as well as the Pastoral Counseling and
Support Programme for HIV & AIDS affected and infected. However
for the purposes of relevancy and contextual accuracy within Phidisa,
the programme comprises the following aspects:
· Phenomenology of religion and Care-Giving.
· Morality and decision making capacity.
· Relational aspects of Care-Giving and support systems.
· Ethical categories and faithfulness in relationships.
· Spiritual formation principles.
· Mimetic structures of modelling and positive living.
· Pastoral Restorative Therapy.
METHODS
Our syndicate group comprises 25 participants within Tshwane area
whose relatives’ colleagues and friends are currently on treatment in
Phidisa. Our Care-Givers Support Group is based on an inter-action
process between the participants. We engage each other on interpersonal
dialogues and narrative empowerment mechanism within the
framework of personal accountability and moral responsibility in the
aspect of care giving. We also employ measures of relationship building
among the Care-Givers. We further address and attend to the needs of
care giving to those who do not qualify for treatment, as well as
understanding the demands of ARVs treatment in the patients’ support
system.
ANTICIPATED RESULTS
The overall benefit of the Care-Givers Support Group is that
participants’ awareness increased with regard to the implications of
the WHO clinical stages I-IV of people living with HIV & AIDS and
its aspects of ARVs treatment. The given process has inculcated
common solidarity and shared experiences that ultimately strengthened
the family support system of our patients.
We also intend to use the Care-Givers groups as a platform to gather
data that could benefit Phidisa from the daily experiences of the Care-
Givers regarding the challenges of giving support to our patients.
Secondly, we need to find ways of empowering our Care-Givers with
practical skills of helping our patients to attain relative success with
adherence to ARV treatment.
Project Phidisa Team, 1 Military Hospital
PROJECT PHIDISA
NEW AREAS OF FOCUS
The Phidisa chaplain has identified a need of a specific
Pastoral Restorative Therapy for the Phidisa clinic staff
(Health Care-Workers) i.e. Doctors and Nurses. The
envisaged intervention program will empower the clinic
staff with spiritual resilience mechanisms as they begin
to attend to their colleagues, friends and close associates.
We seek to address within the staff those issues that relate
to, and have a negative impact on both their emotional,
psychological, and spiritual well-being, and as such lead
to stress factor that accumulates as our Health Care
Workers interact with their close associates.
Furthermore, it could be said that the highlight of the
chaplain’s work in Phidisa this year was reflected during
the successful presentation of the two day Phidisa
Chaplains Care-Givers Training, which largely
comprises of the issues of spirituality and care-giving.
CONCLUSION
It is evident that the role of the chaplains in Phidisa is
premised on a sound ethico-moral frame of reference.
Therefore the chaplain’s focus is geared not only towards
preventative measures but also on the advancement of
both ethical and moral imperatives that affirms both the
dignity, humanity as well as the spirituality of our
patients. It is in this regard that our patients must be
categorically acknowledged as individuals who are
conscious of their God given right as free moral agents.
Furthermore it could be said that the Chaplains Care-
Givers Support Programme strives to accentuate the
importance of spiritual formation exercises that will
enhance the moral capacity of the participants as well as
the Care-Givers for ownership of both the treatment and
purposeful living with HIV & AIDS.
The Military Chaplain - SANDF 7