By Charlotte Huff Feb. 25, 2021Reprints Staff chaplain Rev. Moneka Thompson outside the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital.
Caleb Chancey for STAT
Infection fears have never slowed down Rev. Moneka Thompson. For more than 10 years, she’s visited patients hospitalized at the University of Alabama at Birmingham with tuberculosis, chickenpox, and any myriad of other contagious diseases.
Last March she began to pull on a mask and other personal protective equipment before meeting her first patient diagnosed with a then novel virus. But a nurse barred her from going inside.
“I had never been in a situation where I could not go into a room. Never,” recalled Thompson, a staff chaplain at UAB Hospital, laughing at her own astonishment. “I was like, ‘What? I’m the chaplain. I go everywhere. That’s my superpower.’”