Healthcare workers honored for sacrifice, faithful service

By Peter G. Sánchez, Staff Writer – Catholic Star Herald -November 4, 2021

WILLIAMSTOWN – Dr. Maryann Lauletta has experience working in almost any care setting, from home to office, from long-term care facility to hospital.

Primarily, she sees her work’s mission as one of being able to treat patients with respect and dignity, understanding their needs and desires.

“We need to make plans with patients, help them believe in their care, and heal,” she explains, adding that “my faith has always been at the center of my life, in treating all with love and dignity, with a sense of hope.”

Dr. Lauletta, a parishioner of Church of the Holy Family, Sewell, was one of four healthcare workers to receive a Saint Luke Award for Excellence during the annual diocesan White Mass celebrated Oct. 31 in Saint Mary Church, Our Lady of Peace Parish. Other awardees were Kathleen Benton, MEd, BA, RN, FCN; Dr. Daria Arnold Chacón, and Mila Linda Ortillo-Davis, RN, BSN.

Dr. Lauletta, FACHE, is currently chief medical officer for DinaCare, which helps healthcare organizations virtual and in-home care. She was previously medical director for Inspira LIFE and vice president of medical operations for Jefferson New Jersey.

So named due to the color worn by those in the medical profession, the White Mass is held near the feast of Saint Luke the Evangelist, who tradition holds was a physician, and honors all healthcare professionals in South Jersey.

“I offer my gratitude to you for your sacrifice … professionalism … faithful service … [and] compassion,” Father Sanjai Devis, V.C., parish pastor, said as he addressed the award recipients. “You have responded to God’s call to serve our brothers and sisters in their time of need. Through your hands and knowledge, may the Lord embrace his people in love.”

Among those in attendance at the Mass, which is hosted by the Diocese’s VITALity Catholic Healthcare Services and the South Jersey Catholic Medical Guild, were fellow clergy and healthcare professionals, medical students, and their families and friends.

Deacon Gerard Jablonowski, VITALity’s executive director, called the award recipients “those who live their Catholic faith in their mission.”

Said Ortillo-Davis, “Like Jesus, I’m here to serve, and not be served.”

Born in the Philippines, she first brought her nursing expertise to Northern New Jersey before moving to Egg Harbor Township in 2004 as an ICU Nurse for Atlanticare Regional Medical Center. After retiring from this position in November 2017, she was approached by Father John Vignone, then-pastor of Saint Katharine Drexel Parish in Egg Harbor Township, to start a parish nursing program there.

Today, Ortillo-Davis continues to lead this ministry, which offers bi-monthly health screenings and informative workshops. She also makes house calls to homebound parishioners. 

“I’m putting my trust in Christ,” she says of her work.

Benton, a Collingswood native, has utilized her nursing skills throughout South Jersey for the past three decades in hospitals and schools – as a staff nurse at Virtua Health, a practical nursing teacher at Camden County Vocational and Technical School, for example – in addition to public service and volunteer work.

“Faith and service has always come paramount to me,” she says. “I couldn’t do what I do, without God.”

She also has been a volunteer CPR/First Aid instructor in the Diocese of Camden since 2018, and for 20 years has served as founder and coordinator of the parish nursing ministry at Christ the Redeemer Parish in Atco, helping with its Blood Pressure Sundays, the annual Health Faith and Family Fun Day, and parish programs on end-of-life issues.

Dr. Arnold Chacón is a Camden resident who works as an internist, pediatrician and administrator at Esperanza Health Center in the Kensington section of Philadelphia.

A parishioner at Camden’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Arnold Chacón was first compelled to work in the medical field after seeing her neighbors’ struggles in Camden. At Esperanza, she is able to provide care to the Latino and underserved communities in Philadelphia, including to those with substance abuse issues.

“The work I do, reflects the love God has shown me,” she says, continuing by acknowledging that “God has shown me that hope is never displaced. My calling is to be present [with patients], and walk with them in good times and bad times with love.”