Ms Margaret Naughton:

A question was posed to me about bereavement. Relationship is at the heart of chaplaincy. It is about having the time to build up a relationship with a person, to get a sense of who they are, what their story is, what their pains and struggles have been, helping them to find meaning in their past life and helping them to find meaning in their new reality, which can often be the end of their life journey. If we are reduced to a simple meet and greet service, we do not have the time to build up that pastoral relationship with the person.

If we just come in and say, "Hello, how are you?", and move to the next patient we cannot get any sense of who the person is. Obviously, at the end-of-life stage the person may not have been given any opportunity to work through all the things that are still in his or her heart - regrets, difficulties, etc. Nobody knows what difficulties another person may be carrying within.

To move beyond the person, there is the family who will be left to carry the struggle and the pain of bereavement. If I have not had time to build up a relationship with the family as chaplain, I do not know who they are and I cannot be there to support them. That is one huge challenge. If there is an increase in structures for more chaplains, more time and the single room to be with the family while the person is dying, that all adds to building up the relationship where the family can know who the chaplain is.

I have had many experiences of being present with a person who has died. As late as last week, I had a situation where a woman died, more or less suddenly, and I was called. Her husband said I was the person who used to come and with whom the family used to have all the chats and the conversations in the room when the man's wife was very unwell. We had the opportunity to build up that relationship. We all say that the patient is central. That is correct, but we sometimes forget about the family who are left to carry the bereavement at the end.