Care team ensures patient gets baptized as their final wish

It is not uncommon for patients to want to be baptized as they near their final days. This is one of the many reasons why IU Health has chaplaincy services to facilitate religious or spiritual requests.

Recently, a patient at IU Health Arnett Hospital near the end of their life asked to be baptized. Due to this patient’s religious affiliation, the baptism required them to be fully submerged in water during the sacramental ceremony.

This presented a hurdle for the patient’s care team. The obstacle did not, however, deter social worker Sydney Hopkins, chaplain Randall Adams or nurse Missy Younker, who immediately started brainstorming ways to make sure this patient was baptized during their remaining time.

After realizing that existing resources, such as a birthing tub, wouldn’t work for the baptism, Hopkins recalled that her church performs “mobile” baptisms using a dedicated livestock tank, which was conveniently stored in the barn of IU Health Arnett chief of surgery Mark Buono, MD.

Hopkins contacted the church and Buono’s wife, Rebecca, to make sure they could use the trough for the baptism. Hopkins then coordinated who would pick up the trough and bring it to the hospital.

With the help of manager Valerie Pettiner, the trough was brought to Arnett Hospital to be thoroughly cleaned. Pettiner and Hopkins scrubbed the tank and stored it in an empty patient room overnight. Michael Smith, maintenance technician, assisted Pettiner and Hopkins with getting the trough into the unit.

Once the trough and lift were in the hospital, Hopkins, Keri Rice, RN, and unit support technician Loretta Springer tested out the arrangement to see if the lift could successfully and safely lower the patient into the trough.

Once the team knew that the mechanism would work, Adams coordinated with the patient’s pastor to arrange the baptism.

“There were so many moving pieces to this and many assisted,” said Hannah Clark, Clinical Operations Manager for the unit.

The day of the baptism, multiple team members helped in setting up the trough in the patient’s room and filling it with water.

The ceremony was successful, and the patient was able to be baptized before their death. Both Hopkins and Younker came in on their days off to see that the patient’s wish was fully granted.

Other team members involved in assisting with the baptism included Hollison Shafer, RN, Rebecca Ortiz, RN, Tiara Oden, PCA, Elizabeth Munoz, LPN and maintenance technicians Brad Davids and Dwight Smith.

“This was a multi-disciplinary collaboration and team effort to truly deliver on what matters most to our patients. Sydney, Valerie, and Missy all took extra time out of their normally scheduled hours to assist in this process,” said Clark.

Following the ceremony, it was a collaborative effort to drain the tub. Public safety team members Ed Williams and Mike Fadness jumped in on this accomplishment helping to get the tub downstairs to be loaded onto a truck and back into storage.