Chaplaincy Forges New Partnership with Harlem's North General Hospital

As part of its strategic effort to reach out to medically underserved communities in the Greater New York area, The HealthCare Chaplaincy has formed a new partnership with North General Hospital, a 240-bed minority-operated teaching hospital that serves the Central and East Harlem community. This multifaceted collaboration includes a department of pastoral care, interdisciplinary pain medicine and palliative care services, and a community education program.

The department of pastoral care will be headed by the Rev. Carlos Alejandro, a resident in The Chaplaincy's program for clinical pastoral education supervisors and an experienced chaplain in multicultural environments. A bilingual chaplain, he completed all his pastoral education preparation at The Chaplaincy. (For a profile of the Rev. Alejandro, see the accompanying article at left.)

Dr. Harold P. Freeman, the visionary president and CEO of North General Hospital, is a nationally recognized eader in the fight against breast cancer. The preeminent authority on interrelationships among poverty, race, and disease, his research shows that the poor prognosis for black American breast cancer patients, compared with white, has been a function of socioeconomic factors, not biological ones.

Dr. Freeman, who became president of North General in July 1999, is taking the hospital in new directions with his commitment to the specific health concerns of the Harlem community. He is enthusiastic about both the clinical services and the educational programs that The Chaplaincy partnership offers. "In many ways we have a community that needs to be healed. The clinical problems need to be treated, but healing is more than merely physical. True healing requires a healthy body, mind, and spirit. This partnership helps meet that need," he said.

The director of surgery at Harlem Hospital Center for 25 years, Dr. Freeman is the founder and medical director of the Breast Examination Center of Harlem, a free clinic that opened in 1979. He is a former president of the National Cancer Society and appointee to the President's Cancer Panel in both the Bush and Clinton administrations.

The Chaplaincy's executive vice president and COO, Nick Ucci, said that the partnership offers an opportunity for The Chaplaincy to expand its services to the Harlem community. "With the Rev. Alejandro providing his experienced leadership, we will hit the ground running, providing the clinical care, educational resources, and the community outreach this hospital deserves," he said.

Making Palliative Care Available to All
North General's ambitious palliative care initiative is the brainchild of Dr. Freeman and Dr. Richard Payne, chief of pain and palliative care services at another Chaplaincy partner, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC).

Dr. Freeman wanted to create a palliative care unit based on the MSKCC model. Dr. Payne, a neurologist, agreed to help create this model in the Harlem community. "Major cancer centers like ours have a responsibility to reach out to the surrounding communities and neighborhoods, and to do so in a culturally sensitive way," he said.

Dr. Payne observed that pain has many dimensions‹spiritual and psychological as well as physical."To really help, one has to understand the impact of cancer on the patient and the family, and the meaning of pain in that context," he said. He believes that palliative care is best done with a multidisciplinary approach. "In the African-American and Latino communities, churches play a major role, so we thought it would be very important to involve chaplaincy and pastoral care with the social workers, medical staff, and other caregivers," he said.

North General to Host Chaplaincy Seminar on Community Education
North General is the site of The Chaplaincy's community education seminar, "Coping with Illness and Grief Within the Family," on October 21, 2000. It will address the difficulties and opportunities that confront families and patients who face chronic, long-term, or terminal illness. Chaplaincy staffers Imam Yusuf H. Hasan and the Rev. Carlos Alejandro will lead the seminar, with the Rev. Dr. Preston Washington of Memorial Baptist Church.

The seminar operates in conjunction with the Harlem Palliative Care Network (HPCN), at North General. Dr. Payne's wife, Terrie Reid Payne, is project director. Participants include clergy and faith-based communities, nursing homes, social workers, physicians, and social service agencies that help to ensure continuity of care once home care resources for patients have been exhausted. With support from the United Hospital Fund, HPCN began by assessing the needs of its participants, and then designing programs based on the requirements of caregivers as well as patients and families.

"Many clergy, particularly those who have not undergone clinical pastoral education, have significant knowledge deficits about what their congregations should expect from modern medical care," said Dr. Payne. "We want to raise the level of general knowledge about pain management, how physical symptoms can be managed, and what hospitals can provide, recognizing the important role that spiritual aspects of the healing process play."

Bilingual Chaplain to Create Spiritual Care Program at North General

The Rev. Carlos Alejandro, a supervisory resident at The HealthCare Chaplaincy, will establish the first pastoral care department at North General Hospital in Harlem in September. Chaplain Alejandro, the only Hispanic supervisor working in healthcare chaplaincy in the tri-state area, is a seasoned caregiver, with experience in some of the most demanding venues in the city. As an associate pastor in a ministry in East Harlem, Carlos Alejandro (shown above) served former prison inmates, senior citizens, persons with HIV/AIDS, addicts, recent immigrants and the homeless. A professional journalist who worked at several newspapers and in public relations for ten years, he approached chaplaincy having discerned a personal need to help others. "I felt a calling to work with people who are suffering," he recalled.

As a chaplain with the New York City Department of Correction, first at Rikers Island, and later at the Manhattan Detention Center known as "The Tombs," Chaplain Alejandro provided crisis intervention, bereavement counseling, preached, and administered the sacraments to a multifaith and culturally varied inmate population. "Pastoral care providers learn to navigate diversity and respect the uniqueness of each person they encounter," he said.

The Rev. Alejandro has supervised Spanish-language clinical pastoral education programs, and taught students from seven Latin-American countries. A native of New York and the son of Puerto Rican immigrants, he earned a Master of Divinity degree at New York Theological Seminary and is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He was awarded a B.A. in Political Science from Brooklyn College, and an M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. He holds a Black Belt in Kyokushin Karate and is bilingual in English and Spanish.