The Campbell Reporter
Cover Story
Photograph by Vicki Thompson
Community Outreach: First Congregational's health ministry program was the brainchild of assistant minister Nancy Peters (left). By employing registered nurse Jamie Schweizer, Peters saw an opportunity for her church to reach out to the community.
A Healing Hand
Health ministry program includes in-home visits
By Stephanie Condon
Many parishioners and staff members at First Congregational believe that to lead a fulfilling spiritual life, it helps to be physically fit. At a time when finding health coverage has become bewildering or out of reach, the church is using that philosophy to reach out to its parishioners and the larger community.
First Congregational Church of San Jose, a Protestant church at the corner of Leigh and Hamilton avenues, recently added a parish nurse to its staff to serve its Campbell and Willow Glen parishioners, as well as those from the surrounding community. Jamie Schweizer, who has been on the First Congregational staff since September 2005, is part of the church's health ministry program. As part of that program, the church will host a health fair on April 30.
Schweizer, who holds a bachelor's degree in nursing and previously worked in intensive care and long-term care administration, holds office hours at the church and regularly makes house calls to parishioners. She works part time and focuses on wellness care and prevention. She regularly checks parishioners blood pressure, and she will visit them to make sure they are living a healthy lifestyle.
"I'll look around and see if nursing services would benefit them or what they could do to make their life easier," Schweizer says.
She takes particular care to visit parishioners after they've returned from the hospital.
"When someone's in the hospital, it's not my time to be around, but when they come home, maybe they're alone or they could use some kind of service, and maybe they have no family members to decide those kinds of things," she says. "Now that I'm here, the job is growing--when I first started people didn't really know what to do with me."
Sisters Lois Wylie and Katherina Hess are two parishioners Schweizer visited after Hess returned home from the hospital. Schweizer has visited the sisters in their Campbell home about five or six times, Wylie says, to check their blood pressure and monitor Hess' blood sugar levels because she is diabetic.
"She did an excellent job explaining how to take care of ourselves," Wylie says. "She contacted the diabetes society and got us different things we needed."
The sisters say the most valuable thing about the program is the convenience of having Schweizer come to their home. Schweizer says her services are useful for people such as Hess, who find themselves in between receiving care in the hospital and more regular nursing care at home.
"I feel like there is a gap," she says. "Often, people feel like they're left alone by their physicians and they don't want to bother them, so they're just kind of winging it."
First Congregational's health ministry program was the brainchild of the assistant minister, Rev. Nancy Peters. By employing Schweizer, Peters saw an opportunity for her church to reach out to its community.
"Health care in our country is much less than what we need," Peters says. "Having it as a ministry of the church can be really helpful. It's one of the ways the church has been a positive influence since early on."
First Congregational raised enough money to fund Schweizer's part-time position, along with some programming such as the upcoming health fair, for one year. Peters now is raising money to keep the program going. Before it was started, the church took a survey of its parishioners to make sure they were interested in supporting the program.
Two-thirds of the respondents said they had concerns about their health or that of a friend or family member, says parishioner Carla Zaccheo, who sits on the church's health ministry team, which provides input on the health services the church provides. Nine-tenths thought the church would benefit from a parish health program, and two-thirds said they would be comfortable sharing health concerns with a parish nurse. Additionally, half said they would be interested in participating in a support group for their health concerns.
"So we thought, 'OK, we're on the right track,' " Zaccheo says.
It is no wonder so many parishioners said they would use such services; national studies suggest supplemental health care is greatly needed. In a 2003 report titled "Health Care in America, Trends in Utilization," prepared by the Center for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics, it noted the average length of office visits with a physician increased slightly from 1990 to 2000. However, the length of stay at hospitals has been decreasing since the 1980s. The average length of stay was just under five days in 2000. Also, it was reported the elderly are being treated for more chronic conditions than in the past, making regular treatment necessary. With chronic health conditions increasing, community-based services help keep people out of institutional settings.
One common condition is high blood pressure, which is a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Half of all Americans between the ages of 55 and 64 have high blood pressure, according to "Health, United States, 2005," the CDC's annual report to the president and Congress on the health of all Americans.
Gretchen and Arthur Lichau are among the parishioners whose blood pressure Schweizer started measuring after a hospital visit.
"When my husband came out of the hospital, she came over to see him," Gretchen Lichau says. "She took his blood pressure, and she was really concerned about me, too--about me taking care of my husband because of my blood pressure going up."
Along with providing treatment, a large part of Schweizer's job includes educating the parish about other health care options available to them. For instance, the First Congregational health ministry program hosted a presentation given by representatives from the Council on Aging on Medicare Part D, a prescription drug benefit that went into effect in January.
"Most of the people who were asking why a church would need a nurse came to that one," Schweizer says. "I learned a lot, too."
Zaccheo, for one, thinks the need to explain benefits such as Medicare Part D is making health ministry a growing trend.
"I think they're occurring more," she says. "People are having difficulty accessing the care they need, and they can't figure out where to turn, and this is one way we can help."
Health ministries have been around for a while. The first free clinic in the United States started at Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Detroit in 1950. Schweizer now meets with parish nurses from the Bay Area as part of a local chapter of the Health Ministries Association. While the association is national, Schweizer says it is loosely organized and working to improve communications between nurses from different regions.
Schweizer is also working with Peters to come up with new ways First Congregational's health ministry can help the community. Some ideas in the works include a health day for women and a caregiver support day, Peters says.
"We can just swing into action; as long as something doesn't cost a lot of money, we'll just give it a shot," Peters says.
While health ministry expands First Congregational's ability to provide pastoral care to the community, Peters says the church is not attempting to proselytize.
"Our faith community is not one you would call evangelistic," she says. "We are much more focused on justice issues and the good news being how we live our life day by day, so to have this as part of our outreach is very powerful."
First Congregational hopes both parishioners and members of the community attend its upcoming health fair, which will begin at 11 a.m. on April 30, after the regular service. The church will host at least nine organizations that will present information about health and health care. Some of the organizations include the Diabetes Society of Santa Clara Valley, the Southwest YMCA and Meals on Wheels. There will be free services provided, such as diabetes screenings.
"Many years ago, churches were the crux of health care for a lot of folks," Zaccheo says. "Maybe we're coming around full circle to that because folks have trouble getting access to the care they need.
"Physical health and spiritual health all come together," she adds, "so it's very appropriate for the church to be thinking about the physical and mental health of its parishioners."
The health fair will take place on April 30 from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of San Jose, 1980 Hamilton Ave., San Jose. The free event is open to the public.
