Who are Psycho-Spiritual Practitioners?
Psycho-Spiritual Practitioners (formerly known as Chaplains) are part of the healthcare team. Psycho-Spiritual Practitioners at Hamilton Health Sciences are Registered Psychotherapists through the College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO) and accredited through the national Canadian Association for Spiritual Care (CASC).
Psycho-Spiritual Practitioners provide Psycho-Spiritual care to all people. They strive to support diverse spiritual expressions, religious practices, and the variety of ways people find meaning and express their beliefs. They provide a range of services for patients/families, including: prayer and meditation; rituals; end-of-life support; psycho-therapy; grief counselling; and connections to community faith leaders and religious resources.
Psycho-Spiritual Practitioners promote staff, learner and physician well-being through resilience support to teams across HHS.
Contact Information
A Psycho-Spiritual Practitioner is available Monday to Friday 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM.
Hamilton General Hospital:
- Claudia Collins (cell: 905-870-8123; email: collinscl@hhsc.ca)
Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre:
- Ann Vander Berg (cell: 905-870-4568; email: vanderan@hhsc.ca )
- Juliette Alzate (cell: 905-870-2866; email: alzate@hhsc.ca )
McMaster Children’s Hospital (MUMC):
- Klara Siber-Simic (cell: 905-870-0863; email: siberk@hhsc.ca )
- Klara is also the Practice Lead for the team
St. Peter’s Hospital:
- Femke Visser-Elenbaas (cell: 905-870-3976; email: visserf@hhsc.ca )
- Marta Simpson (cell: 905-870-1468; email: simpsonm@hhsc.ca )
All general inquires about Psycho-Spiritual Care can be made by sending an email to: psychospiritualcare@hhsc.ca
If an incident occurs after hours (nights, weekends or holidays) that requires follow-up by a Psycho-Spiritual Practitioner, please make a referral in EPIC or send an e-mail to: psychospiritualcare@hhsc.ca. A Psycho-Spiritual Practitioner will respond the next business day to assess the need and provide appropriate care as soon as possible.
If there is a major event that requires an immediate response, teams can contact the Site Administrator to escalate a request for support through the Director-on-call.
Patients and families belonging to a faith community are encouraged to contact their own religious leaders directly for support. When a religious leader is asked to attend to a patient in hospital they may be designated as an alternate Essential Caregiver, following the current visitor policy.
Roman Catholic Priests:
The priest on-call is available for urgent sacraments.
The Hamilton Diocese is committed to making spiritual support available to Roman Catholic patients and their families at HHS.
- If a Roman Catholic patient has a relationship with their parish priest, they or their family are encouraged to contact their parish priest to request a visit.
- If a Roman Catholic patient urgently needs the support of an on-call priest for Sacrament of the Sick, families may contact the following:
- Hamilton General Hospital 289-768-4880
- Juravinski Hospital: 289-768-4883
- McMaster Children’s Hospital: 289-768-4886
Clinical Education in Spiritual Care
Hamilton Health Sciences offers supervised pastoral education units. These units are offered through the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care (CASC/ACSS) which is a multi-faith organization committed to training, professional development, certification and support of people involved in spiritual care, Psycho-Spiritual therapy, education and research.