History of Hospital Chaplaincy

All of the earliest hospitals were established and run by people of faith. Monks and people in religious orders whether Buddhist or Christian, who saw that every human being was of infinite value and had a right to be cared for and loved back to health and wholeness, or to be looked after until they died. The aim was to ensure that the sick and injured were not alone when they came to the end of their life.  So the inn on the road to Jericho in Jesus’ story of the Good Samaritan was in a way the equivalent of a hospital, or hospice of today.

The very word hospital comes from the Latin hospitalis, which means the house or institution for guests. Buddhists set up hospitals in India as early as 200 years BC, and in the early Christian era, hospices were first set up for weary and sick travelers. Doctors didn’t work in hospices then. Over time Hospices became places for people who were too ill to be treated and managed at home.

The tradition continues today through the New Zealand Chaplaincy Service which is 50% funded by the Government, with the Churches and community meeting the other 50%. Last year the Government returned to meeting 50% of the cost of the present chaplaincy service. The challenge to the Church and community is to continue meet the other $2.3 million. The Hospital Chaplaincy Week Annual Appeal, which the Interchurch Council for Hospital Chaplaincy Trust Board holds each year, is one way we seek to maintain the present chaplaincy services.

New Zealand the beginning ...

The first Chaplain to be appointed by a government body in NZ was John Ainslie Torrance, a Presbyterian Elder. He was employed as "Protestant Chaplain to H.M. Gaol, Hospital, and Lunatic Asylum" in Dunedin on 1st September 1868 by the Otago Provincial Government. His first report reads: ...The largest share of my attention has necessarily been given to the Hospital. I have  conducted Divine Service every Sabbath evening, and assisted daily with two or three exceptions, for conversation with patients, besides holding occasional services in the course of the week...

From then some ministers were exercising part-time chaplaincies in hospitals as part of their parish duties. In 1945 the National Council of Churches Executive discussed the possibility of full-time qualified chaplains working with the staff of government "mental hospitals".

The first meeting of a Clinical Pastoral Training Committee was held in 1958.

The first NZ hospital chaplains conference was held in 1964 when 49 chaplains from both the National Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church came together.

On the 6th of March 1972 the government under Prime Minister Sir John Marshall, with Mr Lance Adams-Schneider as Minister of Health, agreed to share with the Churches in funding a national Hospital Chaplaincy Service in the public health system. A requirement was that the then National Council of Churches and the Catholic Bishops Conference work together in an "Inter-Church Advisory Committee on Hospital Chaplaincy" (ICAC) alongside the Department of Health to run the Hospital Chaplaincy Service. The Department of Health increased its contribution yearly until it reached 50% of the cost of the Hospital Chaplaincy Service of 55 Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) chaplains in 1975. This arrangement was to "regularise and fund professional pastoral care" in public hospitals "for adherents of all belief systems".

The ICAC worked with the Department of Health to: a) distribute Government subsidy money, b) monitor and harmonize standards of training, accreditation and pastoral care services in hospitals and c) foster the development of ecumenical rather than denominational chaplaincies. The ICAC also established local ecumenical chaplaincy committees which included a representative of the local hospital, to be involved in local funding, appointments, support and welfare of chaplaincies. This arrangement continues to today.

Over time the population increased (by 1 million between 1970 -2000) and changed becoming multi cultural, multi ethnic, multi faith. In the last three decades new chaplaincies in Forensic, Maori, Pacific Island  & Community Health have been developed with stipended chaplaincy positions peaking in 1991 at 75 full time equivalent positions.

Over the years as its duties and responsibilities increased, the Advisory Council became the Interchurch Council for Hospital Chaplaincy (ICHC). The ICHC was incorporated as a Charitable Trust in 1996 when it became clear that it needed a legal status, as legislative changes required it to assume "employer" and other "contractual" responsibilities.

Today the ICHC Trust Board contracts with the government to provide the Hospital Chaplaincy Services in 48 public hospitals from Kaitaia to Invercargill. There are currently 88 Chaplains serving in 57 full time equivalent positions and supervising 320 voluntary Chaplaincy Assistants.  A new 5 year contract between ICHC and the Ministry of Health was signed in August 2008 which has brought the government’s contribution back to 50% of the total cost of the service nationally. 

Chaplains are qualified in spiritual and pastoral care to minister to all patients, their families and hospital staff alongside other providers of spiritual care. As Christians they work under the ecclesiastical authority of their denomination or church.

A network of Local Chaplaincy Support Committees oversees and administers the work of the stipended hospital chaplains and their voluntary chaplaincy assistants.

Hospital Chaplaincy remains a very important service. It is necessary for the ICHC Trust Board and its Local Chaplaincy Support Committees, to seek the other  50% ($2.3 million) from the Churches and the wider community each year, if it is to maintain its service at its present level.