The Reverend Kevin Hasler is the incumbent and Ministry Area Leader which consists of nine parishes in and around Usk. He talks to Kath Skellon about how his nursing career led to his new role in the Diocese.

“BEFORE I began training as a student nurse my first job as was a porter at a psychiatric hospital in Kent. It was an interesting introduction into healthcare.

I wanted to be a social worker but there were only two places that would accept me for training. One was in Scotland and the other in Essex. I didn’t fancy either so I decided to train as a nurse because it was a qualification and experience and then go into social work.

I applied at the London Hospital which was running a four-year joint registered general nurse and registered mental nurse course.

In 1976 I started the course and was living in the East End.

I was blessed by working alongside incredible nurses and ward sisters, through whom I learned so much but the exciting thing about the course was that we were trained to care for the whole patient and not just their physical needs but their psychological needs as well.

It was at a time when nursing was changing and the nursing process was coming in so it wasn’t about doing tasks and having a list of things you did for each patient. It was looking after them as whole people and understanding their physical, psychological and social spiritual needs as well.

At that time there were still one or two wards where you said prayers at the beginning of the day.

At the London the nurses wore those wonderful uniforms with the big puff sleeves which you can see on Call the Midwife.

It was a good local hospital and we spent a lot of time going out into the community.

What struck me was the poverty and inequalities in health that were so prevalent in the East End.

Working in A&E there was a lovely Salvation Army hostel across the road with meths drinkers on the streets who would come in and we would put them in the bath and stand back as the fleas jumped off.

But it was lovely to be able to give care and look after the basic needs of those who were in such need.

That helped develop my social conscience.

I joined the Royal College of Nursing which had just become a registered trade union and was involved in organising some of my colleagues and represented them.

I was enormously blessed by the people I came up against and I met at that time, some of whom have been editors of the Nursing Times, chief nurses, leaders of nursing.

I qualified as a nurse and applied to work at St Christopher’s Hospice, which was founded by Dame Cecily Saunders, who was one of the pioneers of the hospice movement.

I developed my skills in terminal and pastoral care.

Nursing is all about enabling people to fulfil their health potential and being a pastor is also about enabling people to fulfil their spiritual potential.

There are enormous parallels for me between being a nurse and a priest. It’s about being alongside people, accompanying them through the vagaries of life and helping in finding meaning and fulfilment.

There is a real wind of change blowing through the Church at the moment and the Holy Spirit is moving I believe to revitalise and re-invigorate what we do and the way in which we show the love of God out in the community.

It’s not about us changing the message of the Gospel because the good news of Jesus Christ remains the same, but the way we portray that and help people to understand and appreciate that has to take account of different contexts and things happening out there.

The Church needs to respond to that and that is what we are trying to do in the new ministry areas to discover new ways of engaging and serving the community bringing the love of God to those communities.

For me all the nursing I have done and my time in the RCN has been a wonderful preparation and made me the person I am and given me the skills and experiences to enable me to serve God in this way.

After St Christopher’s I wanted to find a role that would enable me to do that so I worked in South London as a district nurse for a number of years. Having that one-to-one contact with people in their homes, having time to talk to them and understand their situation and being a listening ear enabled me to use my palliative care skills to allow them to die peacefully at their homes with their loved ones around them.

At the same time I also started to get engaged with the RCN again and one of my early successes was that I negotiated on behalf of my colleagues a lease car scheme. In those days district nurses had to use their own car and just had a bit of money for the petrol, which struck me as a bit unfair. It became the first car lease scheme in London.

I became branch secretary of the RCN and started to work at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals in South London as a representative. They were wonderful and exciting years.

“I was a full-time trade union officer working in teaching hospitals such as Guy’s, St Thomas’, Kings and in Kent.

I was asked to project manage something in the RCN which was completely new and fresh. That was setting up a 24-hour advice centre for RCN members across the UK and internationally.

We were the first trade union to do that in the late ’90s. The idea was that we would provide a call centre, which is based in Cardiff, for our members to support them.

I was given £1.3 million and said go and set this up somewhere in the UK in a year so I did.

I moved with my family from South London to South Wales. I had a fantastic team of people to work with who delivered the very first 24-hour information advice centre of any trade union and professional organisation in the UK called RCN Direct and it has since been used as a model by a number of organisations. In the early days, NHS Direct Wales came to us for advice and support.

That service went from relatively small beginnings to success after success and has won many awards in the call centre world.

It is the jewel in the RCN crown in terms of the service offered to members.

I was startled to be the first recipient of the RCN’s lifelong achievement award which was a great honour.

The last 30 years of my life have been around the RCN and working in the organisation.

When we moved to Wales I always felt that I should be part of my parish church so I started going to St Peter’s in Bryngwyn where I had a lovely welcome.

I began to get involved in the life of the Church, became a reader and was accepted for ordination training. I trained at St Michael’s in Llandaff and was ordained in 2006. I served first as assistant curate in Raglan and then as priest in charge of the parishes of Gwernesney, Llangwm and Wolvesnewston alongside my full-time job for almost five years.

I had been planning a quiet retirement until the archdeacon asked me to consider this role.

I am incumbent of the nine parishes, which have 10 churches over 30 square miles, and leader of the Usk ministry area which is the first ministry area in the Diocese of Monmouth.

It was an enormous step to leave the RCN and come into this role but I felt God’s calling. I feel that all I have experienced so far has equipped me and I am so grateful for all those experiences and opportunities.

It’s different to the traditional model of a parish priest. It’s us as the church rather than the priest ministering to the church.

My job is to equip the people of God for their ministry in the world. I have been made to feel so welcome and enthusiastic about the challenges ahead.

We have a lot of buildings to look after and have to change our own thinking and how some people in the community see the church. I am looking forward to being part of that and working with people.

I have been in post three weeks and trying to get around to each of the different services in each of the churches as quickly as I can.”