The Royal Free Hospital

VISITING my wife at the Royal Free – she was discharged last week – made me aware of something I had never given any thought to before: the pastoral work of church ministers.

Congregations may be dwindling in some churches but ministers do an incredible amount of pastoral work visiting parishioners in hospital. Often I would see ministers I know in Camden slipping into the ward to sit and talk to parishioners, many of them very ill. I would not be surprised if a minister doesn’t spend several hours a week at hospitals – something probably not all that known in the secular world. Family visits are important for most patients but a visit by a minister can break spells of depression that can grip patients.

As a humanist I can only admire this.