These questions led me to apply for the Health and Justice Track (H&JT), a yearlong course run by Integritas Healthcare in partnership with CMF, centred around biblical justice in healthcare. Expert speakers from the NHS and other organisations share honest, practical, and inspiring wisdom on gold-standard care for vulnerable patient groups, such as prisoners, asylum seekers, the homeless, people with learning disabilities, and looked after children.
Jesus was all about caring for the marginalised, the vulnerable, the outcasts, and those who could not speak up for themselves. In theory, the NHS is for everyone. But not everyone can access quality healthcare easily and equally. As Christian healthcare professionals, I believe we have a special role in facilitating access to good care for those on the margins. This is often complex, time-consuming, and even frustrating. People who need healthcare may not actively seek it. The health and social care systems and structures in place may disadvantage them or add more barriers.
I was challenged by the Justice and Advocacy in the Public Square session of the course, which highlighted some issues that affect the most vulnerable in society. We learnt how to lobby for change in health and social care policy and about the forums in which we can do this. Our knowledge, experience, and collective Christian voice as nursing and midwifery professionals are powerful. We can and should use them to represent Christ in the public arena.
We all encounter people on the margins, whether in hospitals, care homes, the community, or the church. The H&JT aims to encourage and equip you to break down inequality and make a difference through small, simple actions in your practice, wherever you are based. This could simply be helping a homeless person get ID to register at a GP surgery or knowing how to book an interpreter for an asylum seeker's health assessment. Through the course pre-reading, videos, and supportive discussions, the H&JT is rich in theory and practical insights, which are discussed in small, safe groups to enhance learning and application.
I remember visiting the medical wing of a London prison on the final weekend of the course. I was left with the impressions of the slamming of heavy metal doors, the colourful and disturbed writing covering the cell of a prisoner battling mental illness, and the passion of a prison GP advocating and navigating the logistical complexities for long-serving prisoners to have access to basic surgical procedures.
It is our natural human condition to avoid the complex, disappointing, messy mud of injustice. It is, however, there in the mud that we find our spotless saviour, Jesus Christ, waist deep, holding out his hand and pulling people up and out.
Consider signing up to the H&JT to be equipped, challenged, and inspired to join in with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to be his hands and feet to those in the mud of injustice.
For further info visit: integritashealthcare.org/courses/health-justice
Kim Woolnough is a learning disability nurse working in Oxford.
