Inside hospital rooms across America, where the sick are alone without family to comfort them, the grim task of offering solace falls to overworked and emotionally drained hospital chaplains who are dealing with more death than they’ve ever seen.

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Last week nearly a dozen died on a single day at the 377-bed Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, a gleaming, modern medical facility that is tucked into the northwest corner of Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley.  . . .

As he has each day for the past 11 months, Chaplain Kevin Deegan sits with the sick and dying, clad in a face mask, face shield, gloves and full body cover. He prays with them, holds their hands, gently brushes their foreheads and reassures them there is nothing to fear. . . .

Grieving families, unable to enter the hospital because of the deadly virus, watch through the iPad he’s carried into the room with him.

“All right, Miss Leticia, it’s Chaplain Kevin. We’re going to say some prayers now. Ok, my dear? . . .

Deegan, who ministered to people undergoing hospice and palliative care before joining Holy Cross two years ago, is no stranger to death. But still, he says, he and his fellow chaplains had seen nothing like this before COVID-19 struck last year and began to kill people by the hundreds of thousands. Close to 400,000 people have died in the U.S. alone. . . .

Deegan and about a dozen other chaplains cover shifts that extend to 24 hours a day, seven days a week. . . .

As Chaplain Anne Dauchy prays for a woman during her last moments, the patient’s loved ones watching through Dauchy’s iPad can be heard sobbing in the background and saying words like, “I love you so much, Mamma” and “Thank you for everything.’”

“We try to kind of reframe what a miracle is,” an exhausted Dauchy says afterward. “Sometimes it’s living another day, sometimes it’s a patient opening their eyes. . . .

When asked how he, Dauchy and the others manage to survive the turmoil emotionally, Deegan replies, “That’s a good question. I have to be honest. I don’t know.” . . .

He was sure he’d eventually be infected as COVID-19 patients began pouring into the hospital every day. So far he has not, and just last week he had his second dose of the vaccine.

“Who knew PPE really works,” he said with a chuckle during a rare lighthearted moment as he discussed the personal protective equipment he dons each day before work.

On that Monday when 11 people died, including three he personally ministered to, Deegan went home and, after he tried to fall asleep, saw the faces and again heard the voices of the people who had sobbed and screamed at him, “Why? Why? Why?” . . .

Some families lash out at the chaplains, looking for someone to blame, said Monica Pantoja, a clerk at the hospital’s intensive care unit who has been isolating at home after becoming infected herself. . . . .

When her 72-year-old mother was hospitalized for three months with COVID-19, including several weeks on a ventilator, a chaplain called every day to put her on the iPad with her. Her mother is now recovering at a rehabilitation center. . . .

As Deegan prayed with another patient last week he encouraged her loved ones to talk to her through the iPad, and when one shouted, “Hi Mom,” the woman, on oxygen, opened her eyes wider, raised her head slightly and tried to reply, although the words wouldn’t come. “Who is that?”, Deegan asked her. “Is that Marvin?” She nodded. . . .

“It was painful and at the same time it was heartwarming because I had the chance to pray with my mom, with the pastor,” he said before turning to Deegan to tell him, ‘Thank you, God bless you.’”

“You’re bringing tears to my eyes, ” Deegan said as he removed his glasses to wipe the tears away before pausing to remember once again why he shows up every day.

(Excerpt from AP News. Article by John Rogers. Photo Credit: Unsplash.)

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