Page 36 - Healthcare News Sept.-Oct. 2020

HEALTHCARE HEROES OF WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS
Rabbi
Devorah
Jacobson
Director of Spiritual Life, JGS Lifecare
She Became a Guiding Light at a Time of Pain and Darkness
RBy George O’Brien
abbi Devorah Jacobson came to JGS Lifecare as its director of Spiritual Life in 2001. And, for the first 19 years or so, she came to work each day knowing exactly what her job was and how it would be carried out.
But when the COVID-19 pandemic reached this facility last March ... well, she still knew what her role was, but she had to continually revisit that question about how to carry it out, because the answer had the potential to change seemingly every day.
“I’m part of the team. And I made
a pretty quick decision — to be truly part of the team, 365 days a year, we do what we’re called upon to do.”
“Every day, I would ask, ‘what does it mean to be a chaplain in a long-term facility during this time?” she told HCN. “In the midst of the pandemic, when many of our residents are sick, many are going to the hospital, and many are dying, and staff are being called upon to work long hours and do things they weren’t necessarily doing before, like post-mortems, and where they’re risking their own health and lives every day they walked into the building ... I’m observing all this and asking myself, ‘what is my role as the spiritual leader of this institution?’”
To say she would find new — and impactful — ways to answer that question would be an understatement.
Indeed, over the course of the past seven months, Jacobson has been a source of comfort to a number of constituencies, including staff members, residents,
Dani Fine Photography
A24 OCTOBER 2020
2020 HEALTHCARE HEROES