The Uplands was filled with the voices and energies of twenty frontline health workers and their colleagues at the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center from October 11-14. Retreat participants serve low-income residents – including many immigrants – in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. Under the heading “Sanando en Comunidad Retreat” (Healing in Community), the retreat was focused on healing for these frontline health workers, following the grueling and – for many – traumatizing experience of trying to provide care to vulnerable people during the COVID pandemic.
While mental health resources and community health facilities for poor people in urban centers are already scarce and overstretched, the pandemic exacerbated the strains in that system and left unacceptable gaps. At that time, frontline health workers (including mental health providers) found themselves in incredibly high demand, with excessive caseloads, terribly under-resourced health resources and increasingly desperate patients, while trying to serve the city’s essential workers and most exposed individuals at a time of multiple intersecting crises. The toll of that experience is still being felt today.
Instead of using the typical framing around “burnout,” the retreat employed the framework of moral injury in healthcare. “Moral Injury,” a term initially coined by the US military, suggests that this experience is a public health issue, shaped by an unrelenting “bottom line” approach to healthcare and political and historical systemic racism in the medical industry, rather than a personal failing on the part of the providers. The program centered largely on strategies these health providers have used to manage the impact of moral injury on their daily lives. The retreat included workshops on topics ranging from food and nourishment, change and loss, meditation and moral injury, interspersed with abundant meals of curry, tagine, spaghetti squash casserole, and spiced butternut soup. Around those sessions, the group enjoyed a sound bath, yoga class, a fire under the stars, a guided walk to the Vista shed and an art project, as well as time in the pool and hot tub and spontaneous conversation over cups of tea.
It was a true pleasure to host the Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center at The Uplands as they restored their energies and replenished their spirits, while reaffirming their ongoing commitment to their work in support of the Jamaica Plain community in Boston.
