Head of spiritual care of King’s Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital Rev Lee Gilbert says QEH is one of the most diverse places to work in town
It’s the turn of Rev Lee Gilbert, head of spiritual care for Lynn’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, to write this week’s Thought for the Week column…
I have a very privileged job, not only do I accompany people from all sorts of walks of life on their journeys through the health system, but I also get to do so alongside many people from different cultures, countries and faith perspectives.
In 2024 the Sacred Space inside the QEH hosted displays and heard people talk passionately about some of the major religious celebrations and festivals from around the world as well as major occasions in this country.
Holi, Hannukah, Easter, D-Day Commemoration, Remembrance, Christmas, Eid, Onam and Diwali to name but a few.
Within the hospital, at the last count, there were over 130 different nationalities represented in the workplace.
The hospital is probably one of the most diverse places to work in the town.
Sometimes the festivals were celebrated with dancing, music and food and sometimes with displays.
Sometimes a solemn service has told a story and sometimes the hubble and bubble of lots of people having conversations have told their own story.
And for me, this is one of the most beautiful things about my job, I get to learn about different people and what makes them tick and I also get to learn about my own faith as well.
I am a Christian, a follower and disciple of Jesus and when he was alive, Jesus was visited by people giving his family gifts, who were not from his own country and who followed the stars. The magi or wise men.
When he was teaching, he healed the servant of a man whose government was oppressing his own. The story of the healing of the Centurion’s servant.
In one of the longest episodes in Jesus’ life, he gave teaching to a woman who came from a country that worshipped God in a different way and who came from the country that bordered his. The story of the Samaritan woman.
And when he died, his cross was carried by a man from Eastern Libya, Simon of Cyrene.
The list could go on and even more fundamentally than that, Jesus was a Jewish man, born in Israel and he definitely was not British, unlike myself.
But even if all of that were not true, it’s still an honour to find out about other people and listen to their stories.
For what I find is that by listening to others tell their stories, you then have the permission to tell your own story.
And by doing that, having that conversation, you probably learn more about yourself and what makes you tick.