(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, hospital chaplains continue to try to touch patients without physically touching them.
Rev. Karen Swiderski has been a chaplain for 28 years at Edward Hospital in Naperville.
Looking back on the past year, she said: "I'm not going to say that there weren't moments where I went home and had some tears coming down from my eyes and wondering, 'How am I going to go back there tomorrow? That was really horrible today.'"
But she added she and her team of chaplains still find a way.
Chaplains communicate with COVID patients through a window in a door while talking on a phone. She and her chaplains also care for health care workers, she said.
Swiderski looks forward to one day being able to hug patients.
