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| Parish Nurses! |
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| Parish Nurses! |
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Durant, Iowa -- Bernadine Fitzer and Betty Fink worked many years as nurses and were looking forward to retirement. That's when their pastor put a bug in their ear.
Would they be interested in checking out Trinity Regional Health System's Parish Nurse program?, asked the Rev. David Lawson, pastor of Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in Durant. The two longtime friends said yes, but assured themselves this would be a fact-finding mission only. After the information session at the Moliene-based medical center, they were hooked. They went through the training program and in January 1993 were annointed at Trinity, installed at Gloria Dei and officially began their parish nurse ministry in February 1993. It took a period of adjustment before parishioners embraced the idea of a health care ministry providing physical, emotional and spiritual care for individuals and their families, Lawson said. Today, "it's like a real lifeblood" of the parish, he added. "I think the way health care is going -- you see your professional people less and less and you're in the hospital less and less, so people can come to us with questions," said Fitzer, 70, who is retired from her professional nurse's job. The role of the parish nurse is one of education, advice, referrals, and checkups and spiritual support -- not treatment. They take blood pressure, offer a small library of books and pamphlets about health issues, write a column in the church bulletin and newsletter, give mini-seminars on health topics, host a Healthy Muffin Sunday once a year and offer guidance and prayer too. Each Parish has the flexibility to tailor its program to the needs of its congregation, but the mission remains the same, said Harriet Olson, developer of Trinity's Parish Nurse program. "I think people who have a spiritual sense about them handle pain better -- all sorts of pain -- physical and mental," Fitzer said. |
 Parish nurse Betty Fink checks Carole Ellingsworth's blood pressure at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. |
 Nurse Beradine Fitzer prepares an informational bulletin board at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. |
"We're trying to teach people to manage and assess their own health problems and to get help when they need it," Fink 67, said after finishing up with blood pressure checks one Wednesday morning in the church. Bernice Schnede, for example, had bee doctoring herself for swollen ankles, Fine said. The medication she was taking kept her up all night. Fink advised the 83-year-old woman to take her medication earlier in the day. "We have to admire them for the time and effort they put forth before anyone even comes here to take advantage of their services," said Schnede, who has hypertension, or abnormally high blood pressure. "I don't know how we got along without them before," added Janice Bockwoldt of Durant. She has endured the death of her husband, a son and other relatives, as well as the near-death struggles of a daughter with diabetes. "We all know what stress does and we all know that we need to sometimes turn our problems over to the Lord because we cannot solve them ourselves," Bockwoldt said. Lura Lee Kappeler of Durant is grateful to the parish nurses for alerting her to a high-blood pressure problem and what might be aggravating it. "They're very complete in so many things," she said. Information and compassion are their forte. They look up or write for information about any health question qustion a parishioner might have, said Carole Ellingsworth of Durant. "If they don't know it, they'll find it," added Ellingsworth, who received much-needed emotional support from the parish nurses during and after her late sone David's battle with AIDS. While some parishes employ parish nurses, Gloria Dei's angels of mercy do their work as unpaid volunteers. Their office hours are 9 a.m. to noon every Wednesday except the third Wednesday, when they attend a meeting at Trinity. They also meet with parishioners before and after Sunday services and occasionally go on home visits. Once a month, they meet at Trinity with parish nurses from 54 Quad-City area congregations to share ideas and concerns and get updates in the health-care field. "They do a good job of keeping us informed," Fitzer said. |
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