Care & Comfort

Willis-Knighton Health System offers a variety of resources to help address your spiritual needs while you are in the hospital. Meet Willis-Knighton's Director of Spiritual Care Services, father Andrew Comeaux, who will explain these services to you.

This program defines and explains palliative care and hospice care, clarifying their emphasis on 'wholeness'—body, mind and spirit—during chronic illness and end of life, respectively. It explores how this interdisciplinary team approach, including a chaplain's participation, can provide support and comfort to patients and their families throughout their journey. Plus, family caregivers share meaningful experiences and authentic conversations with loved ones nearing death. '[Hospice] can give people that goal of having good days at a point in life that is so important…' (Scott Amrhein, Family Caregiver)

Perhaps nothing raises more powerful spiritual and emotional questions than end of life. This program addresses common emotions, wishes and issues, demonstrated primarily by one family caregiver's very raw account of her loved one's death after a courageous battle with Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Discussions by family caregivers and professional chaplains include the value of 'life review' (to remember and resolve things, and pass on stories); end-of-life wishes (medical, legal, rituals); self-care for the caregiver; and views about what happens when we die. 'In the end, it's the patient's choice; it's the patient's decision…' (Pam Bell, Family Caregiver)

What is grief? Through the powerful guidance of professional multi-faith chaplains and the personal journeys of family caregivers, viewers will learn that grief is complicated and unpredictable. While the experience, whether a reaction to illness, loss, change or death, is deeply unique to each individual, this program explores common reactions and soul-searching questions: 'Why has God done this me? Who am I now?' Chaplains reaffirm emotions, and suggest various coping strategies and spiritual exercises—all of which can help viewers adjust to change, embrace a new normal, and, as one chaplain says, 'to grief and to be.' 'It's very important that we honor [grief] and claim it in order to live healthy, full, free…' (Rev. Karen Jones, Chaplain)