The move is part of a broader campaign by St. Elizabeth’s and its corporate parent, Boston-based Steward Health Care System, to strengthen its “cultural competence” and establish itself as a go-to community hospital system in Eastern Massachusetts. Among other changes, St. Elizabeth’s also has installed a foot bath for Muslim patients and employees, and hired more interpreters for patients who speak Russian, Portuguese, and African languages.
But the outreach to the observant Jewish community is unique, targeting a population that has sometimes felt uncomfortable at Catholic hospitals and gravitated historically to Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, 2½ miles away in Boston’s Longwood Medical Area.
Dr. Rebecca Schwartz, who is St. Elizabeth’s vice president of radiology and led the effort to open a Bikur Cholim room, said it was important to counter the “preconception” that the Brighton hospital wasn’t always welcoming. “Being a religious hospital is part of our mission,” she said. “Serving religious persons of all faiths is something that this institution values.”
At an evening reception last week marking the opening of the Bikur Cholim, a Hebrew term for “visiting the sick,” a small group of Hasidic Jews, some with traditional black hats and side curls, mingled with more than 50 guests and members of the medical staff. Among the guests was “Bostoner Rebbe” Naftali Horowitz, the Hasidic grand rabbi of Greater Boston.
“This has been an approach of many hospitals in the United States today that are sensitive to Jewish issues,” Horowitz said. “This [family room] is the first one for the Boston area. It’s a great credit to St. Elizabeth’s, being on the razor edge of community relations.”