Healing the Spiritual Damage
as well as the Physical
Ged Clapson meets a Jesuit doctor whose ministry includes treating loneliness
and lack of self-worth, as well as drug addiction and alcohol dependency
Paul O’Reilly is from Belfast. He’s a doctor. And a Jesuit priest. And he says his present job is “the best I’ve ever had”.
Having been educated by the Jesuits at St John’s Beaumont and Wimbledon College, Paul applied to join the Society of Jesus at the age of 16. The Jesuits did not accept him for another nine years, by which time he had qualified as a doctor, working up to 104 hours a week. After studying Philosophy in Manchester, he was despatched to Brickdam where he worked in the Medical Faculty at the University of Guyana. Then back to Britain for a spell as a teacher at his old school in Wimbledon and further studies.
It was while reading Theology at Heythrop College in London that Paul’s path crossed with that of Dr Mary Hickey, a religious sister (a Daughter of Mary and Joseph) and a gynaecologist by profession. Mary was in the process of setting up a surgery at the newly opened Cardinal Hume Centre for homeless people in Central London. She desperately needed trained medical staff, and Paul started doing one afternoon a week. He had found his niche. He says he really looked forward to going to work. And he even underwent three years’ training for General Practice in Birmingham.
Paul was just about to go into homeless medicine when a need arose in Guyana, and he was sent back out to the Region for a further four years. But now he is back working almost full-time at the centre for homeless young people founded by Cardinal Basil Hume of Westminster in 1986. Its initial aim was to provide a place of refuge and support for young families living in bed and breakfast accommodation or bed-sits, and within a year it had added a medical centre (the Surgery) to serve people without a fixed address.
“One of the poorest areas in the world in terms of healthcare is between the Palaces of Westminster and Buckingham (in London),” Paul insists. “The average age of death of a homeless person is 42; if they’re an intravenous drug user, it’s between 32 and 34. That’s even worse than in Sub-Saharan Africa!”
Many of the people Paul treats are on hard drugs, especially crack and heroin. He says it is immensely fulfilling to see the improvement in people’s lives in a relatively short period of time. “By getting these young, homeless, drug-taking young people off potentially lethal drugs and onto methadone, we are helping to save their lives. The principal thing many of them need is stabilisation, to feel more settled, to get some control back into their lives so that they can start coping with the reality of life again.”
The surgery at the Cardinal Hume Centre is unique, inasmuch as it is the only full-time facility of this kind dedicated to serving homeless people in London. And Paul believes the fact that he is a Jesuit is an important component to the work, since something like this benefits from the support and dedication of a religious order. He draws a comparison with the early Jesuits. “When Rome was devastated by the plague, they rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in, staffing the hospitals because no one else would. They saw an urgent need and they responded – as Jesuits have done throughout their 467 year history!”
But the service provided by the surgery at the Cardinal Hume Centre often extends far beyond the medical or the physical. “For many patients, the underlying lesions and disease are a lack of faith – in God, in humanity and in themselves,” Paul reflects. “That’s often the hardest condition to deal with. So by being a service rooted in Christian principles, we have to ask ourselves how we can respond to the spiritual damage that patients might manifest. As we help them cut down on crack or heroin, as the voices in their head subside, as they start to bring their drinking under control, we often uncover a deeper, more painful loneliness. The solution isn’t just medical; it’s often spiritual too. And that really is holistic treatment!”
Paul O’Reilly is from Belfast. He’s a doctor. And a Jesuit priest. And he says his present job is “the best I’ve ever had”.
Having been educated by the Jesuits at St John’s Beaumont and Wimbledon College, Paul applied to join the Society of Jesus at the age of 16. The Jesuits did not accept him for another nine years, by which time he had qualified as a doctor, working up to 104 hours a week. After studying Philosophy in Manchester, he was despatched to Brickdam where he worked in the Medical Faculty at the University of Guyana. Then back to Britain for a spell as a teacher at his old school in Wimbledon and further studies.
It was while reading Theology at Heythrop College in London that Paul’s path crossed with that of Dr Mary Hickey, a religious sister (a Daughter of Mary and Joseph) and a gynaecologist by profession. Mary was in the process of setting up a surgery at the newly opened Cardinal Hume Centre for homeless people in Central London. She desperately needed trained medical staff, and Paul started doing one afternoon a week. He had found his niche. He says he really looked forward to going to work. And he even underwent three years’ training for General Practice in Birmingham.
Paul was just about to go into homeless medicine when a need arose in Guyana, and he was sent back out to the Region for a further four years. But now he is back working almost full-time at the centre for homeless young people founded by Cardinal Basil Hume of Westminster in 1986. Its initial aim was to provide a place of refuge and support for young families living in bed and breakfast accommodation or bed-sits, and within a year it had added a medical centre (the Surgery) to serve people without a fixed address.
“One of the poorest areas in the world in terms of healthcare is between the Palaces of Westminster and Buckingham (in London),” Paul insists. “The average age of death of a homeless person is 42; if they’re an intravenous drug user, it’s between 32 and 34. That’s even worse than in Sub-Saharan Africa!”
Many of the people Paul treats are on hard drugs, especially crack and heroin. He says it is immensely fulfilling to see the improvement in people’s lives in a relatively short period of time. “By getting these young, homeless, drug-taking young people off potentially lethal drugs and onto methadone, we are helping to save their lives. The principal thing many of them need is stabilisation, to feel more settled, to get some control back into their lives so that they can start coping with the reality of life again.”
The surgery at the Cardinal Hume Centre is unique, inasmuch as it is the only full-time facility of this kind dedicated to serving homeless people in London. And Paul believes the fact that he is a Jesuit is an important component to the work, since something like this benefits from the support and dedication of a religious order. He draws a comparison with the early Jesuits. “When Rome was devastated by the plague, they rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in, staffing the hospitals because no one else would. They saw an urgent need and they responded – as Jesuits have done throughout their 467 year history!”
But the service provided by the surgery at the Cardinal Hume Centre often extends far beyond the medical or the physical. “For many patients, the underlying lesions and disease are a lack of faith – in God, in humanity and in themselves,” Paul reflects. “That’s often the hardest condition to deal with. So by being a service rooted in Christian principles, we have to ask ourselves how we can respond to the spiritual damage that patients might manifest. As we help them cut down on crack or heroin, as the voices in their head subside, as they start to bring their drinking under control, we often uncover a deeper, more painful loneliness. The solution isn’t just medical; it’s often spiritual too. And that really is holistic treatment!”