New Year honours: Belfast hospital chaplain dedicates MBE to team of 40 he works with

The Rev Derek Johnston, who leads a team of almost 40 chaplains across several hospital sites in the city, has been made an MBE.

Mr Johnston said: “Our core work is supporting and being with patients, giving them help and reassurance, compassion and care.

“But also supporting the staff in the challenges they face.

“It is rewarding and fulfilling, but we are visiting people for whom something has gone wrong.

“So, you are not necessarily meeting people when they are happy and well and the world is bright, you are visiting people who are feeling all sorts of challenges and frustrations and vulnerabilities.

“That can take its toll.

“There is not just the toll of normal life, but the toll of Covid in recent years.”

Mr Johnston was part of the team which continued to provide chaplaincy services during the Covid pandemic.

He said: “When the Nightingale (hospital) was opened two of us went in twice a week fully donned up with all the gear and went around all the patients, spoke to staff, made contact with families and so on.”

He first became aware of the MBE honour when he received a letter at home.

He said: “I thought, 'what's that because I haven't written to the prime minister for a while?'

“I was standing up when I opened it and I actually had to sit on the stairs, my jaw dropped and I thought, 'is this real?'

“My next thought was, 'why me?' I thought of people like my dad who served in the Boys' Brigade for all of his life, I thought of other colleagues who have dedicated their lives to do so much.

“I had to take a couple of reads at it to make sure it was really for me.

“It was a mixture of humility and honour, not just for me, but as a chaplain, as a member of a team.

“I am part of a team and others do an awful lot of work.

“This recognition is for all of them, I am privileged to lead the team, but it wouldn't function with just me.

“It needs everyone doing their part. They all play their part.

“When I saw the letter I didn't think of what I've done.

“I thought of what others have done who don't getrecognised.”

Mr Johnston said he had initial doubts about whether to accept the honour.

“There is a sense of unworthiness, but then I felt it is not just about me and for me, it is for everyone who serves in chaplaincy, for everyone who works with patients.

“It is for the health service as well.

“Unfortunately, when people say to me how is the work going, I say the conveyor belt doesn't stop, there are still sick people coming in every day.

“We have to take people where they are at.”