Annual Report. PATRIARCHAL CURIA UGCC 2019

55 Pastoral Health Care ministry Building a network of medical chaplains, who work on a voluntary basis in the Ukrainian medical system, has been a great achievement of the Commission on Pastoral Health Care. There are currently 120 medical chaplains in all UGGC eparchies/exarchates. They provide regular (on av. 3 times per week) visits to hospitals in their area, serving Liturgies, organiz- ing prayers, providing Sacraments and spiritual conversations to the ill and to the medical personnel. It is important to establish a legal framework for the ministry of medical chaplains, since currently medical chaplains can serve in hospitals only as volunteers. The Commission has proposed cer- tain legislative initiatives which would ensure some legal status to medical chaplains and support from the state. "Formation of the medical chaplains and the seminarians who may be- come medical chaplains is our priority," stated the newly appointed head of the Commission on Pastoral Health Care Sister Sevastiana Karavatska. We welcomed Sister Sevastiana to our team, appreciating her extensive experience in the medical field from studying and working in Australia and Ukraine. Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord James 5:14 120 medical chaplains in all UGGC eparchies/ exarchates provide regular visits to hospitals offering Sacraments and spiritual comfort to the ill and to the medical personnel Last year, we launched a pilot run of the training course "Pastoral health care" in the UGCC seminaries (Kyiv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankvisk and Lviv). Altogether 96 seminarians in the last years of their study participated in the course. The trainers of the program were medical chaplains of the UGCC trained in 2015-2017 on Certified Program of Pastoral Education of Salzburg Klinische Seelsorge Ausbildung. The seminarians reported that this train- ing course helped them overcome their fears and stigma against medical chaplaincy field. In fact, the course helped them form a very positive image of medical chaplaincy ministry as an honour- able duty. The seminarians also appreciated practical aspects of the program — opportunities to have conversations and feedback from medical personnel, to learn how to conduct various prayers in hospitals (e.g. baptism of children in reanimation), to train how to conduct dialogues with patients (following the scheme).