By Lachlan Green
Weaving through the uneven footpaths of Rome, on my way to join countless other pilgrims journeying through the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica, I was stopped in my tracks by a statue laid in front of Santo Spirito in Sassia Hospital. The statue was simple, and its plaque totally familiar, and yet it resonated on an unexpected level. The statue depicts a lady, sick underneath a blanket, with its plaque reading: “I was ill and you visited me.”
I had the great privilege of travelling to Rome at the invitation of the Strategic Alliance of Catholic Research University’s (SACRU) working group on vulnerability and healthcare. The working group, led by Associate Professor David Kirchhoffer (Director of Queensland Bioethics Centre, Australian Catholic University), had organised a two-day workshop and public event (April 6-7) at Australian Catholic University’s Rome campus, focused on exploring the notions of vulnerability and trust as they related to the delivery of health services. The proceedings aligned with the Jubilee of the Sick and Healthcare Workers, giving special significance to our gathering in the eternal city.
Workshop discussions crossed geographical and disciplinary borders – moving from philosophy to medieval history into theology, with practical insights from health and physical sciences. The conversation formed a rich statement on the topic of vulnerability, shaping Monday night’s public event.
In attendance were a variety of senior health leaders, academics, and Australia’s freshly appointed ambassador to the Holy See, The Honourable Keith Pitt and his wife Amanda. After a welcome from A/Prof Kirchhoffer, the audience heard Virginia Bourke (Chair of Mercy Health, Pro-Chancellor of ACU, Director of Caritas Australia) speak on the importance of a developed concept of vulnerability underpinning care services. I then joined five other doctoral candidates for a panel discussion on the topic, with a response from Boston College’s Professor Jim Keenan.
In his remarks, Prof Keenan stated, “Vulnerability is a robust concept for healthcare ethics. Not only does it identify those who experience precarity but also those who are responsive; nurses, physicians and others are vulnerable (responsive) to those in need. But the responsive ones cannot be vulnerable to another experiencing precarity unless they allow themselves to be vulnerable to the ones they accompany. Vulnerability marks then a fundamental openness that has considerable relevance for our moment in time.”
While I participated in these conversations as an ACU doctoral candidate, I couldn’t avoid thinking through the lens of my professional experience in Catholic health and aged care. I started working as an aged care Assistant-in-Nursing when I was 17, which gave me a profound opportunity to encounter people at their times of most heightened vulnerability (including when living with dementia and in their final days). These experiences never left me as I worked across administrative and advocacy roles in the sector.
Last year I joined the pastoral services team at St John of God Bunbury Hospital, which reinforced the powerful effect of being with people in their times of heightened vulnerability. As I stood by the beds of numerous people, giving space for them to voice and explore their spiritual and emotional concerns, I was constantly aware of my own feelings and beliefs – my own vulnerability.
Of the many insights I was privileged to gain, three resonated closely with my experiences:
- We are all vulnerable.
All humans have the capacity to be harmed. We can also recognise and respond to this capacity in ourselves and others – this is vulnerability. In this sense, being vulnerable is not a trait reserved for those who are sick, old, living with disability, or otherwise experiencing marginalisation. These experiences merely bring awareness to the vulnerability that exists in all of us.
- Relationships of trust can turn our vulnerability into human development.
Relationships of trust are built when we recognise our vulnerability and that of the other – and we nonetheless choose to risk harm in an effort to foster integral human development. In other words, even though we might get hurt, trust means we still decide to open ourselves up and work with another to make our lives better collectively!
- The jubilee calls us to remember the sick and healthcare workers.
Our healthcare services receive people at times of heightened vulnerability, and it is the duty of these services to create spaces where people can be vulnerable safely and empowering their integral development. But, as we are reminded by the corresponding jubilee, we must be mindful of, and respond to, the vulnerability of both the sick and the healthcare workers who dedicate themselves to their care. It is only when we recognise the vulnerability of all persons that we can effectively build empowering relationships of trust in our healthcare systems.
Journeying home to Bunbury, my thoughts return to the statue and to the words of Matthew’s Gospel engraved upon it. I can’t help but feel sincerely grateful that Australia has a strong network of Catholic health and aged care services that live and breathe vulnerability. I believe these services do provide spaces for people to be vulnerable safely, while working to build trusting relationships and empower integral development.
They build that trust through cutting-edge care practices and dedicated staff. But they also do so through the simple yet spiritually significant act of being with the person; encountering them in their vulnerability as if they were encountering Christ himself.