Abstract
Only a few years ago, with considerable delay behind other ministries, state bodies and churches proceeded to the legal provision of spiritual care in hospitals and its implementation in practice, and thus to fulfilling the religious freedom of individuals and their groups according to the Constitution and international law. We have already dedicated the entire conference to this in 2017.
The unexpected pandemic of Chinese coronavirus in the last two years has exacerbated the urgency of continuing this process more quickly. After all, not only patients in the departments of psychiatry, infectious diseases (including coronavirus) and intensive care units are completely cut off from their loved ones and the outside world, but at the time of the nation wide ban on hospital visits, all patients.
The establishment and extension of the existing spiritual care by churches for the faithful in hospitals and care through being present and listening to all who wish it is absolutely necessary. The issue of the motu proprio Spiritus Domini of 10 January 2021 extending the acolyte service to women and emphasizing the need to extend this permanent free service to lay people of both sexes offers further assistance in caring for the sick, which can be performed by acolytes from the ranks of doctors, nurses and all hospital staff.
In the second part of the study, the author reports on his personal experience of staying in hospital in September 2020, sometimes horrible, but also comforting. Finally, he makes suggestions on how to ensure an overall improvement in the relationship of caregivers to patients.
He emphasizes the need to increase the number of chaplains in hospitals as a means of humanizing hospitals and saving patients from the knowledge that they are only things and a means of scientific research.