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Irish Hospice Foundation
Toolkit for Compassionate End-of-Life Care
Spiritual care at the end of life
Spirituality is about finding meaning and purpose in life. Some people find their sense of spirituality in several ways: • Our relationships (with friends, family, colleagues, carers). • e arts, such as music, poetry, art, dance, drama. • e environment, for example, nature, mountains, the sea, our garden. • Our creativity, our work, our imagination, our hobbies. • Religious practices, prayer, meditation, worship, etc. e provision of spiritual care goes a lot further than addressing any religious needs that a person might have. e end-of-life care planning process should explore what spiritualty means to a person, so that person-centred spiritual care is provided, to help them achieve a sense of peace in their heart. ese are the kinds of questions you coud ask: “What raises your spirits?”, “What gives you a sense of peace in your heart?”, “What brings you comfort?”, “In difficult times, where do you draw your hope and strength from?”, “Do you have any or spiritual religious beliefs?” To provide spiritual care to another person, it helps if we know and are aware of our own spirituality. When it comes to spirituality, ‘what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours’, and even if we share common ideas or practices, the experience of spirituality is individual. Providing spiritual care is about ‘being with’ rather than ‘doing to.’ Chaplains and other types of spiritual carers may be available to meet with patients, and are specifically trained to do so. However, even without this training, anybody who feels comfortable doing so can help a person feel accompanied (‘being with’) in their journey. It is about intimacy and sharing, using all of our senses, our spiritual intelligence, to be able to offer spiritual hospitality, drawing from our well of humanity to support another person to feel a sense of belonging and connectedness, a sense of peace. Providing spiritual care at the end of life is like accompanying the person on their journey. As staff members, we have to acknowledge that this is their journey; our role is to journey with them in their way.
Caring for a person who is dying
Remember, we only have one chance to get it right.
Caring for a person who is dying may make you feel uncomfortable. End-of-life care situations can remind us of our own mortality or bring up strong emotions connected to our own bereavements and loss. We may feel an overwhelming need to be ‘doing something to help’, yet we may be unsure of what that ‘something’ is. End-of-life care is both unique and common. While every death is an individual experience for that person and their community, there are aspects of dying that are common to all deaths. Knowing this gives us the opportunity to expect and plan for the provision of the right care needed at this time.
Care of the Dying Person 4
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