Telehealth: Co-Treating Success

I have had the extreme privilege during this Covid-19 pandemic to be able to continue to see patients at an in-patient hospice facility where I work.  I’ve been doing that remotely.  Yes, I was skeptical, but it has truly been almost equal to being there in person the vast majority of the time.   

We have a system where the staff at the facility know that I will “be there” one afternoon each week.  I do rely on staff to “take me” to the patients that I will see.  And yes, on one occasion the patient thought I was a television. 

One afternoon one of the patients was beginning to decline and becoming agitated.  While the chaplain was at his bedside he recalled that I was “in the building,” and knew that the patient had a keen love of music and had sung in his ship’s choir during his Naval service in the Second World War.  Soon I was visiting the patient virtually with the chaplain.  According to the chaplain, “the patient grew calm, and then began to sing along with Rachael, singing word for word with her, and keeping perfectly on key!  After a few old western ballads, Rachael played and sang Anchors Aweigh for the former sailor, and his voice, though weak, was filled with youthful enthusiasm, and his eyes grew bright.” 

I was very grateful for the chaplain’s presence, as I could tell that the patient was responding positively to the music, but I could not make out his words.  The chaplain encouraged the patient to choose a song and the patient knew his choice straight away.  I found the song and the patient grinned from ear to ear.  He sang along to the words of the 1940’s wartime favorite that spoke of a young lady’s love for her sailor – a song that must have held a special place in his heart: 

When her sailor boy’s away on the ocean blue 
Soldier boys all flirt with her but to him she’s true 
Though they smile and tip their caps and they wink their eyes 

She just smiles and shakes her head, then she softly sighs 
“Oh, bell-bottom trousers, coat of navy blue” 
She loves her sailor and he loves her too! 

It was a lighthearted song that many sailors no doubt enjoyed when they were far away from loved ones.  It brightened the day and lightened the heart of one more old sailor who was “far away” from family and friends.  And with the help of a couple of hospice team-mates (who had not a dry eye between them that day), the patient’s voyage home was made a little happier, and the seas a bit calmer. 

Rachael Willeke and a Priest of the Russian Orthodox Church