---

BY MICHAEL NAZIR-ALI  

Hospitals began in the eastern part of the Christian Church, inspired by Christ's example of serving and caring for the poor, the sick and the needy. They spread rapidly to the West and were closely associated with religious orders and their duty to offer hospitality to any in need. The oldest hospital in the land, I believe, is in Rochester, and it is called St Bartholomew's, like its more famous namesake in London. The names - St Thomas's, St Richard's, St Mary's - betray their origins and quite often these foundations continue to have connections with the Church. How is it, then, that the Christian faith is becoming more and more marginal in the very places that owe their origin to it? Why are chapels being replaced by "multi-faith rooms'' and how can it be that a nurse, Caroline Petrie, can be suspended for offering to pray for a patient who could have said - and did indeed say - "No, thank you''?

Praise be! Mrs Petrie is being allowed to return to work - but are other people vulnerable to the same kind of treatment? People's personal beliefs and their professional practice are often closely inter-related. Of all professions, nursing is one that is firmly rooted in the Christian tradition. It arose first in the religious orders, and, although it began to become secularised after the Reformation, its Christian foundations were rediscovered by people such as Florence Nightingale - the founder, in many ways, of modern nursing.

During a visit to Egypt, she studied the work of the Sisters of Charity at Alexandria and also of the order of deaconesses in Germany. While in the Crimea, she is known to have prayed for the soldiers who were her patients. It was her inspiration that led to the training of nurses in a systematic way in this country, and she was hugely influential in the increase of Christian medical missions in Africa, Asia and elsewhere.

In many parts of the world, these missions pioneered the practice of modern medicine and, especially, the training and use of nurses in hospitals. This debt is widely acknowledged in the countries concerned. How ironic that it is in Britain that a nurse is threatened with the loss of her job for offering to pray for someone who was unwell - especially when prayer at the beginning of work was routine for nurses in many British hospitals right up to the 1960s.

Indeed, in the NHS itself spiritual care is widely recognised as part of caring for the whole person. More and more evidence is available that spiritual beliefs and prayers have a positive effect on patients and their sense of well-being. Chaplains and others are employed to deliver appropriate care to staff, relatives and patients. This is especially so at times of bereavement or of a local or national emergency, but it is not, of course, limited to such occasions.

It may be, however, that political correctness is restricting even the role of chaplains and of the volunteers who work with them. It is no longer enough, it seems, for the chaplain to be able to visit people who have declared their faith on admission. The chaplain may not be allowed access to such data on confidentiality grounds (in which case why gather it in the first place?), and patients may actively have to request the services of a chaplain or volunteer before they can have access to them. Why cannot consent for access by chaplains, for example, be taken at the same time as information about religious allegiance?

The arrival of people of other faiths provided chaplains with an opportunity for Christian hospitality in making sure that such people had access to a spiritual leader from their own tradition and had their spiritual needs met. This has now mutated into the closure of chapels, the retrenchment of a distinctively Christian chaplaincy and the advent of a doctrinaire multi-faithism. Let me say immediately that this has little do with people of other faiths who have no objection to chapels and chaplains, as long as their own needs are met, and everything to do with secularist agendas that marginalise all faith but seem especially hostile to Christianity.

It seems certain that no other faith would be subjected to such strictures and, indeed, to the benign neglect to which the churches have become accustomed. A place for Christians in the public square must be reclaimed. We should be able to contribute to public discussion about the beginnings of life and its end, the structure of the family, the building of community, justice for the poor, company for the lonely and, especially, the care of the sick, the dying and the bereaved.

It is time for a movement of Christians that will put the Christian case vigorously in public debate, that will remind the nation of its Christian heritage, that will make a difference where there is human need and, yes, that will commit itself to prayer in schools, hospitals, prisons, workplaces, Parliament and the streets so that people may experience again the blessing of God on this country.

Michael Nazir-Ali is the Bishop of Rochester.