Pastoral Care Services, Walnut Creek
If you are a patient or a family member, you may need spiritual, personal, or religious resources to maintain your sense of well-being, faith, and hope. Our chaplains are trained to address your spiritual care needs, whatever they are. If you require a clergy person of a specific faith tradition we don’t have on staff, we work in partnership with community clergy, religious leaders, and trained lay visitors.
Spiritual care is often initiated by a visit from a pastoral care staff member or one of our registered community visitors. To request chaplain support weekdays 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, call 3-5281 from a hospital phone or (925) 947-5281 from outside the hospital. For emergencies on evenings, weekends, and holidays, patients and visitors may ask a nurse or hospital staff member to contact the on-call chaplain, available 24 hours, 7 days a week.
Our Team
Our professional chaplains, local clergy, and trained lay spiritual caregivers:
- Bring no agenda other than to support you according to your needs and beliefs
- Listen with respect and without judgment
- Offer comfort in times of distress and despair
- Journey with patients, families, and staff through grief, loss, and suffering
- Help patients, families, and friends as they call upon their spiritual beliefs and traditions to help them in the healing process
- Facilitate debriefings after traumatic events
Meeting Your Spiritual Needs
Appropriate spiritual care at John Muir Medical Center, Walnut Creek starts when a patient is admitted. Patients are invited to identify their religious preferences when they are registered, and the nursing staff conducts a spiritual assessment as part of the nursing admission process. Social Services frequently asks patients and families about their spiritual needs, and all those who serve our patients can make referrals to pastoral care.