Tejwant Singh ji
Of course you would be the one! You have done it for Homeland Security. Now you are joining up with SALDEF and that is really wonderful.
I want to just share this from my own hospital experiences - many in the last 2 years - that will prove how important your efforts are. This has next to nothing to do with kesh specifically, but it is related to the larger issue of awareness of other religions. As you proceed to the south and east of the city of Philadelphia and into the southeast suburbs, there are many communities of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. The doctors, nurses and other medical professionals are drawn from those groups because they also live in the same communities. Questions related to kesh, diet, language needs and prayer are better known. Fewer misunderstandings. As you move more to the south and west the situation does change, although where I am there are many Muslims. This and the fact of so many doctors from India, creates not so much awareness, but a sense that a patient should be taken seriously when he/she makes needs known or raises religious objections. Still there are difficult moments. In the particular hospital where I go there is no chaplain, but they do have members of the Roman Catholic clergy making regular visits. The area is predominately Catholic although the hospital is not affiliated to any religion. All of this goes along with the notion that prayer and faith helps one to recover more quickly and makes it easier to live with the difficulties of sickness and in some cases the need to make peace with death. The big problem with this however is the social pressure to permit a priest or nun to pray over you. It takes a stiff back to say "Thank You, No!" All is well-intentioned but I felt it put me in a tough position for that very reason. I said NO every 3 weeks for 2 years lol. And at one point a priest got a teeny bit annoyed and said, "I will pray for you later." And I said, "And I will pray for you too!" He became red in the face and stomped off. .....bruised religious authority?
So there is an undercurrent of pressure around religion in hospitals. Most of the nurses had never heard of the Sikh religion, and I explained as best I could what we are. I talked about kesh, Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji and Guru Nanak, and the Maryada. When you are sick it is often easier to cave in. Your efforts should pay off in the end.
And... a little p/s Something tells me that if the cleric were a Muslim, this would have gone easier. I think he would have offered to call the gurdwara for me if I wanted. But it was always a Roman Catholic. I never saw an imam.
