Thank you so much for this presentation Dr Colette which I found incredibly helpful. I have been a Hospital Chaplain for 26 years and it is incredibly painful to witness incidents of moral injury still occurring today. I realise now that my son, then, 10 years old, and I suffered moral injury back in 1995 when my young husband was diagnosed with terminal gastric carcinoma and died all within 3 months. My husband was given chemotherapy, which the oncologist strongly advised, but the side effects devastated his final few weeks and robbed us all of quality time together. His final hours were spent fighting for breath and then haemorrhaging from every orifice. The hospital staff kept trying to intervene with medical procedures...in spite of us saying "please stop"!! It took years for my son and I to recover from what we'd witnessed and we both developed PTSD and depression. Our strong Christian faith carried us through years of bereavement, but I could not return to my nursing career. Instead, years later, I trained as a minister to become a hospital Chaplain and now offer support to patients, relatives and staff who often face impossible situations and the fall out associated with end of life choices.
Thank you so much for this presentation Dr Colette which I found incredibly helpful. I have been a Hospital Chaplain for 26 years and it is incredibly painful to witness incidents of moral injury still occurring today.
I realise now that my son, then, 10 years old, and I suffered moral injury back in 1995 when my young husband was diagnosed with terminal gastric carcinoma and died all within 3 months. My husband was given chemotherapy, which the oncologist strongly advised, but the side effects devastated his final few weeks and robbed us all of quality time together. His final hours were spent fighting for breath and then haemorrhaging from every orifice. The hospital staff kept trying to intervene with medical procedures...in spite of us saying "please stop"!! It took years for my son and I to recover from what we'd witnessed and we both developed PTSD and depression. Our strong Christian faith carried us through years of bereavement, but I could not return to my nursing career. Instead, years later, I trained as a minister to become a hospital Chaplain and now offer support to patients, relatives and staff who often face impossible situations and the fall out associated with end of life choices.