Question to Catholic nurses

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

Elderly patient in acute care, very sick, A,Ox4. Catholic chaplain tied up somewhere else, so a volunteer from Chaplain's office comes. This guy was NOT a priest (wore no robes, no badge).

The patient wanted to have Holy Communion, but was on extreme swallow precautions with "pureed food only, 1:1 supervision". The volunteer refused to give her the host. When I asked him would it be appropriate to just let her kiss it, or do something else so that her religious needs would be satisfied, he became rude and told that "church policies" prohibit anything except actually consuming the host, and if patient is not able to do that, then it is essentially his or her personal problems.

Poor LOL was all over the place in tears.

So, my question to anybody who might know: what can actually be done in such situation? I just do not believe that poor people who just cannot swallow must be treated so cruelly.

[Emergent, RN]

I used to be a devout Catholic, and left because of this sort of hairsplitting legalism. Some of these Eucharistic Ministers of Holy Communion are insufferable holier than thou, priest wannabes, frankly.

What this patient needed is the Anointing of the Sick rite, administered by a priest. If the chaplain was unavailable, I would call a local church. This was previously called last rites, but now can be administered more than once, when patient very sick.

[bugya90, ASN, BSN, LVN, RN]

My grandfather was on hospice and could not swallow (unconscious during the last few days), the priest just touched the host to his lips.

Some people will bend the rules, especially when patients are that sick and some people, like the one in your situation, think they are holier than now and won't do anything even slightly outside of the "norm".

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

Thanks guys!

(looks like I'd met another someone who got his head filled with policies instead of brains )

[HeySis, BSN, RN]

I also grew up as a devote catholic. I found the Eucharist wafers will just melt on the tongue... no chewing or swallowing needed.... I'd check and see if that is the case with the ones they administer, if so .. problem solved.

[bugya90, ASN, BSN, LVN, RN]

I also grew up as a devote catholic. I found the Eucharist wafers will just melt on the tongue... no chewing or swallowing needed.... I'd check and see if that is the case with the ones they administer, if so .. problem solved.

Lucky! Our wafers are always hard as a rock and it takes several minutes of crunching on them to be able to swallow it. They've gotten better in recent years though. Maybe my church is just cheap and ordered some weird off brand [emoji12]

[smf0903]

Lucky! Our wafers are always hard as a rock and it takes several minutes of crunching on them to be able to swallow it. They've gotten better in recent years though. Maybe my church is just cheap and ordered some weird off brand [emoji12]

Holy moly, we got read the riot act if we were caught chewing the wafers when I was growing up. I remember when I was in about 6th grade, one of the girls in my class (yup, Catholic school) got sick and puked after receiving communion. Everyone got crazy weird and they literally scooped up all her puke and put it in a jar to do whatever they had to do to the already consecrated Eucharist. I swear I will remember that until the day I die LOL.

[Horseshoe, BSN, RN]

Good grief. I have been accused of being a "rules" person, but this just takes the cake.

[Coffee Nurse, BSN, RN]

I'd feed that back to the chaplaincy office and see what they say. Worst case scenario that's actually their "policy" and you might open their eyes to the suffering it caused, more likely I expect they take that volunteer to task for being a little too self-important.

[KatieMI, BSN, MSN, RN]

I'd feed that back to the chaplaincy office and see what they say. Worst case scenario that's actually their "policy" and you might open their eyes to the suffering it caused, more likely I expect they take that volunteer to task for being a little too self-important.

By my observation, for every low-level policy worshipper there is at least one direct boss who suffers from the same, so bothering Powers That Close is spending time and energy. I'm going to go up to chain of THEIR command as soon as I get that mountain of homework off myself.

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

Reformed Baptist here (so my own church's doctrine on the Lord's Supper is quite different), but we have our Catholic chaplain administer the anointing of the sick to intubated people all the time. I've also seen them touch the elements to the pt's lips or tongue.

[HarleyGrandma, RN, EMT-B]

Lucky! Our wafers are always hard as a rock and it takes several minutes of crunching on them to be able to swallow it. They've gotten better in recent years though. Maybe my church is just cheap and ordered some weird off brand

I have tears running down my face from laughing so hard...I'm picturing "Holy Ghost Knockoffs" at Dollar General!

I grew up in a hard core devout Irish Catholic house, my mom would have knocked ya flat for touching the eucharist.

I hope the little old lady found peace and comfort.