Welcome to our new website!

Welcome! You’re exploring our new website, designed to be easier to navigate and mobile-friendly. We’re continuing to make updates and add content, so check back often as we work to enhance your experience.

Spiritual Care

Lakeridge Health supports holistic, person-centered care and understands the importance of focusing on the mind, body, and spirit for healing. 
 
Our Spiritual Health Practitioners are multi-faith, registered professionals who are part of the interprofessional team. They are available to patients, clients, residents, Essential Partners-in-care, as well as Lakeridge Health staff, physicians, and volunteers. 
 
Confidential services and counselling to help individuals find meaning, connection, hope, and strength within their health-care journey is offered to anyone of any faith, as well as those of no particular faith. The team can provide spiritual and emotional support while respecting your beliefs. Connections can also be made to a religious/faith leader from the community for your specific needs. 

 

What we do: 

  • Offer spiritual and emotional support during a hospitalization through individual assessment and counselling services. 

  • Provide support for managing change, illness, grief, and loss. 

  • Facilitate patient/peer support groups. 

  • Listen to concerns and help guide questions for the health-care teams. 

  • Help access specific faith resources (sacred texts, rosaries, etc.) and connect you to community faith leaders, as requested. 

  • Provide Roman Catholic access for communion and Sacrament of the Sick (as community Priests are available). 

  • Facilitate a variety of services, including mindfulness, emergency baptisms, blessings, Indigenous activities (including Indigenous Smudging ceremonies), and end-of-life rituals. 

  • Provide opportunities for prayer, meditation, and reflection. 

  • Engage with our hospital community to help create meaningful policies, practices, and guidelines to meet the needs of our diverse community. 

  • Help health-care providers to cope with the intensity of their professions, duties, and life challenges. 

  • Offer Clinical Psychospiritual Education in association with the Canadian Association for Spiritual Care. 

Multifaith Resources

Please contact spiritualcare@lh.ca for access to these, or other resources patients, residents or team members may be seeking during their time in a facility.   
 
If requested, arrangements may be made for the individual to keep the item, other items will need to be returned for cleaning and reuse. 
 
Suggestions for needed items to support the diverse needs of patients, residents and team members are always welcome.

Menorah in Hebrew is “lamp”. This is a Jewish candelabra what can have 7 or 9 branches. This is lit, one candle each night, during the eight-night holiday of Hanukkah and is a symbol of Jewish endurance.

Large white menorah with lit candles inside a modern building, with windows and evening light visible outside.
                                                                             

 

 

Also known as a “Singing Bowl," this is used in spiritual practices, meditation, and sound healing for relaxation, stress reduction, and to promote a sense of inner peace and physical and mental wellbeing. 

Brass Tibetan singing bowl engraved with script, resting on a red and gold cushion, with a wooden mallet inside.
                                                                             

 

 

This is a portable, tech-enabled Islamic product. It is Bluetooth enabled and plays Quran recitations and other educational stories.

White and black Qur’an Cube LED device displayed on its branded box, showing digital time and controls.

This portable basin holds water for the sacrament of baptism. It can be used for ritually cleansing for members of the Christian faith, symbolizing spiritual purification.

Stone baptismal font with a carved cross and a dove symbol at the center, photographed against a gray background.

These beads are used to count and help keep track of prayers in the Catholic faith. This is also a tool for meditation and for expressing devotion to God.

Gold and white rosary beads arranged in a loop on a gray fabric background, with a small gold cross.

This includes bundles of dried herbs, typically sacred plants like white sage, cedar or sweetgrass that are burned to release aromatic smoke for spiritual cleansing and purification. Rooted in Indigenous traditions, the smoke is used to clear negative energy from a person, space or object, promoting peace, clarity and positivity. The feather is used to disperse the smoke and guide the smoke to specific areas.

Smudging kit in a white box containing two sage bundles, wooden sticks, a large feather, and an iridescent abalone shell.

This is a clean, dedicated rug for performing daily Muslim prayers. The beads are used to count the repetitions of phrases glorifying God. 

Black and gold patterned prayer mat with tassels, folded on a gray surface, with black prayer beads placed on top.

These are strands of beads used to count recitations or mantras or prayers during meditation and spiritual practice. They help practitioners maintain focus. 

Strand of brown wooden Buddhist prayer beads arranged in a loop on a gray fabric surface, with a small knotted tassel at one end.

Various religious texts, including Hindu, Muslim and Christian, are available in the Spiritual Care offices, often donated to Lakeridge Health from the religious community.

 

 

 

 

 

Hand knitted shawls are created and donated to Lakeridge Health from various Christian faith groups. Each has been blessed and are provided as comfort measures for anyone interested.

Three knitted prayer shawls in white, blue, and yellow, folded and laid side by side with fringed ends.

These small, self-contained lights make a convenient option for creating a serene or sacred atmosphere, for religious observances, prayer or meditation. These are a practical alternative where open flame is not safe.

Cedar is integral to many Indigenous practices because nearly every part of the tree is useful in building, clothing, medicine and spiritual ceremonies. The tree is a symbol of strength, protection and a connection between the physical and spiritual worlds. Prayers of gratitude are offered before harvesting any part because of the deep spiritual connection for Indigenous Peoples.

Contact Spiritual Care if Food Services is unable to meet an immediate need for Kosher food. These snacks are donated to us for patient use as needed. 

Basket filled with packaged kosher snacks, including chips, crackers, and bottled drinks.

This box was donated from the community and plays various Hindu chants.

Qibla is the fixed direction towards The Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to which Muslims face during their daily ritual prayers to maintain unity and a spiritual connection. 
 
This symbol can be found in all four Multifaith Centres available inside hospitals: 

Locations: 

  1. Ajax Pickering Hospital - 1st floor

  1. Bowmanville Hospital – 1st floor, north wing

  1. Oshawa Hospital – 2nd floor, A wing

  2. Whitby – NEW Multifaith Centre Available! Enter from the Tea House – 1st floor, north wing 

Multifaith Centres for prayer and reflection are also available at the following locations: 

  • Ajax Pickering Hospital - 1st floor. 

  • Bowmanville Hospital – 1st floor, north wing. 

  • Oshawa Hospital – 2nd floor, A wing.

  • Whitby Hospital – 1st floor, north wing (Tea Room entrance). 

Connect with us at spiritualcare@lh.ca.

For more information, patients and families are encouraged to speak to a member of your health-care team. 

Community Religious Leaders from all faith communities who wish to learn about the recently updated registration process are welcome to connect with us. Step 1 is to complete a registration form; sign the Lakeridge Health Statement of Confidentiality and receive information on hospital requirements when visiting.  Step 2 includes information on access to parking when you are visiting for a minimal fee. 

For more information, please email us at spiritualcare@lh.ca. We thank the community for the support provided to patients and residents.

Contact Us

Lakeridge Health
905-576-8711