Need ideas on getting a hospital chaplain to stop trying to talk to atheist inpatient.

[eShirl]

7. post-sleep thought: possibility she didn't realize until after-the fact, the patient she talked to

was the person I had previously asked her to NOT talk to.

I'll try to give a succinct synopsis. My discussion with the chaplain happened in a different section of the hospital, where I was with a 2nd family member who also happens to be a patient. I didn't have a problem with her talking to patient 2, and when I was leaving to check on family member patient 1 she offered to come talk to him as well. Told her I wished she wouldn't, he doesn't like talking to chaplains, priests, etc.

She continued to offer, using different reasons why talking to him might be beneficial or comforting to him somehow anyway, necessitating increasingly firm and emphatic explanations that he did not want it, had previously asked me to prevent chaplains from even talking to him if I could, and that rather than being a comfort it would make him angry and upset. I warned her if she did try to talk to him, he would tell her to leave and that if she didn't he would get increasingly loud, angry and insulting until she did leave. (I've seen him do it in the past.) I thought that might have finally gotten through to her, and I left.

A few hours later as I'm making my way to my atheist family member's room, she comes up to me in the hall and says, "Hi, I talked with your (family member I had asked her not to)." I'm like WHAT?!?!?!?!?! inside, and said LOUDLY so other people could hear, "After I specifically asked you NOT to talk to him??" And she said yes. It was kind of a blur after that, but she wasn't particularly defensive, apologetic, or explanatory, just quietish and with the same sad, verge-of-crying expression she seems always to be wearing.

Anyway, it occurs to me that perhaps, PERHAPS, she was just making her introductory, we're-hear-if-you-want-to-talk-and-the-chapel-is-that-way rounds of that hospital wing, and didn't realize until after the fact that she had talked to someone she had been asked not to talk to. It's either that, or she's some kind of pushy religious narcissist who shouldn't have access to the captive audience of a hospital full of sick people. I will give her the benefit of the doubt for now.



I've taken too long writing this already.
Thank you to all who read and responded to my OP; venting last night helped be able to get some sleep.