Posted on September 10, 2008 | Category: Writing
Published on North Gate News Online, April 7, 2007
The woman lying on the hospital bed greeted her visitors with a tense smile. Hala Shaheen’ dark eyes were shadowed and her skin almost as white as the pillow she reclined on. But the look in her eyes softened when the visitors introduced themselves as Muslim volunteers.
“We’re here to support you and your family during your illness,” they told her.
After a few moments of conversation, the visitors spread their hands in front of their hearts, palms opened toward their faces and closed their eyes. They chanted a prayer in Arabic and then translated it.
“Oh Lord, the merciful, please give Hala strength and cure her. You are the curer, there is no cure except you, oh Lord.”
Shaheen’s eyes were tightly closed, her forehead wrinkled in concentration while they prayed. When she said goodbye to her visitors, her smile was brighter.
Muslim volunteers have visited Kaiser Hospital in Fremont since late March as part of the hospital’s new Muslim Spiritual Care program, which connects Muslim patients with fellow Muslims who can offer company, spiritual counsel and assistance in navigating the system.
Maria Servin, who handles diversity programs at the Fremont medical center, said the hospital wanted to extend its existing chaplaincy program to make Muslims more comfortable in the hospital. She hopes the culturally appropriate care will also help the medical staff at the hospital better understand their patients.
“When we bring in a program like this, we also bring in cultural brokers,” Servin said. “It’s a process of them teaching us about their culture, and us teaching them about the hospital.”
The greater Bay area is home to some 250,000 Muslims, according to the Council of Islamic-American Relations, a nationwide Islamic advocacy group. While exact numbers aren’t tracked for Fremont and Hayward, CAIR estimates that there is a high density of Muslims there. According to the US census, 50 percent of Fremont residents are Asian, including many from countries with large Muslim populations. Fremont is also home to the country’s largest community of Afghan refugees.
Kaiser’s spiritual care program is modeled after a successful program Stanford Hospital has been running for the past four years. Taqwa Surapati, the volunteer coordinator from Stanford, is mentoring the new Kaiser volunteers.
She said Stanford began the program after noticing a cultural disconnect between patients and staff at the hospital that was causing discomfort to patients. For instance, a nurse once found an older woman huddled on the floor of her room, mumbling. The nurse picked up the patient and placed her back on her bed. The woman was distressed and later explained she had been praying.
Doctors and staff at Kaiser noticed similar disconnects, according to Dr. David Newhouse, who handles diversity issues at the hospital in Fremont. He said it was important to the hospital to address the culturally specific issues and needs of patients.
“We all have biases,” he said. “Sometimes we think we understand what’s going on, but it’s important to open up better dialogue.”
George Fitzgerald, the director of spiritual care services at Stanford Hospital said the Muslim spiritual care programs are emerging from a new awareness in medicine of the spiritual side of care.
“What’s happening in hospital care today is the recognition that there’s more to healing than the physical,” he said. “It’s also a kind of spiritual, and psychological process. More hospitals are trying to be sensitive to where the person is in their life, as well as the physiological sides of medicine.”
In 2005 Kaiser conducted focus groups with the members of the Muslim community, as well as other communities the hospital serves, including Filipino and Chinese.
One thing the hospital learned from its focus groups, Newhouse said, is that Muslim patients were deeply affected by the anti-Islamic sentiment that has developed after 9/11.
According to Moina Shaiq, the volunteer coordinator of the Muslim spiritual care program, many Muslims are fearful in the hospital environment. They are stressed already about being sick, and then they are afraid to speak up about their needs as Muslims, she said. The volunteers will help them and their families feel more at ease and help communicate with hospital staff on religious and cultural differences, such as dietary needs, gender interactions, and end-of-life issues.
Shaiq said the cultural issues are often minor, but they can still cause a lot of unnecessary anxiety for a Muslim patient. Muslim women are often uncomfortable if they are treated by male doctors or nurses without their husband present. Muslim men, especially older immigrants, can also feel discomfort around female health care providers. A food as innocuous as Jell-o, which can be made from pigs hooves, can be suspect to a Muslim patient.
Shaiq is active in community service in Fremont. She has started her own non-profit to help Muslim seniors and she serves on the City of Fremont’s Human Relations Commission.
Shaiq experienced the discomfort and alienation that especially older Muslims can feel at the hospital when her own mother had back surgery in Atlanta. Seeing how scared her mother felt in the hospital motivated her to find a way to help other Muslims who may feel out of place in a hospital setting.
“People are intimidated,” she said. “They don’t think they can ask for things, like a nurse or doctor of the same gender because it might be rude to ask.”
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