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Hospital support for Buddhists?

By Yönten, on August 14th, 2012

Yesterday I received a call from a staff person at York Central Hospital, asking me if I could provide support for a Chinese Buddhist patient. Since I can’t, I put them onto Cham Shan Temple on Bayview Avenue. The temple is huge and has a very active congregation.

But the call got me thinking. Priests, rabbis, ministers and imams visit hospitals all the time. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that Buddhist temples, particularly ones with ethnic congregations not readily served by mainstream organizations, already have established relationships with healthcare centres? The caller said she found me on the internet.

In other words, what IS the state of Buddhist support for hospital patients across Canada?

Does anybody have some data or would anybody care to comment?

Buddhism in Canada   , ,  
  • Cathy Rose

    A recent hospital experience leads me to believe that there is very little available in the way of Buddhist support on offer outside of perhaps Ottawa and the GTA.

  • Lynette Monteiro

    There are a number of Buddhist Chaplains (ordained) in Toronto.  The Upaya Zen Chaplaincy program has a list of them.  While Buddhist centers provide spiritual care, a hospital Chaplain can work with the inter-disciplinary care team on the ward.  
    Kosu Boudreau (Third Cohort) is a full-time CPE Provisional Teaching Supervisor at Bridgepoint Health Hospital and 
    Andrew is cofounder and program director at Gitche M’Qua Centre for Healing, located in Toronto, Canada. I’m in Ottawa.  We are all trained as inter-denominational Buddhist chaplains.

  • Yonten

    Here’s what I heard back from one reader: “I think Toronto Buddhist Church is on-call for many GTA hospitals.  Of course, we can’t adequately service the whole GTA patient population, especially since some conservative Asian immigrants are disappointed by Buddhist clerics who don’t shave all their hair off (and some are dismayed by female Buddhist clergy, which we’ve had at many points).”

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