NHPCO NewsLine Spring 2018 - 44

Council of States Spotlight

In each issue of NewsLine, we share
news and information from the
organizations that make up our
Council of States. In this issue, we
share an article on a prison hospice
program developed in collaboration
with the Missouri Hospice and
Palliative Care Association.
In 2013, the Missouri Department of
Corrections partnered with the
Missouri Hospice and Palliative Care
Association to draft a formal training
manual for offenders. This manual
borrowed many of the same practices
used in the Louisiana State
Penitentiary's Hospice Program in
Angola. The Angola hospice program
owes much to the Louisiana
Mississippi Hospice and Palliative Care
Organization which initiated
innovative and compassionate work
of caring for people dying in
corrections facilities.
Angola was one of the first prisons
to implement formal hospice system
when it did so in 1998. When
created, more than 85 percent of
inmates at Angola were expected to
die behind bars. Staff consisted of a
mix of certified nurses and other
offenders from the same prison
system. This program would be a
model for Missouri's laterestablished formal hospice system.
(For a photo tribute to volunteers at
the Louisiana State Penitentiary's
Hospice Program in Angola, see
NewsLine, April 2010 - page 10.)

Missouri Offenders Help Their
Peers Come to Terms with Death
By Jake Cookson & Madison Fleck & Kat Jennings
& Aviva Okeson-Haberman
Offenders in some Missouri prisons are breaking down walls - emotional
walls. They're demolishing the barriers they've spent years building while
inside a prison cell. But it's only at the end of their sentence, the end of their
life, that those walls finally crumble. And they crumble with a fellow inmate
by their side.
It's all part of the Missouri Department of Corrections (MODOC) Hospice
Program, which started in 2015, where offenders are trained to provide end-oflife care for their peers.
Deloise Williams, assistant division director of medical services at MODOC,
said Missouri prisons have anywhere between eight to 10 hospice patients
each month. But the fact that they're prisoners doesn't change the kind of care
they're getting.
"People are people are people," she said. "I know what that person did because
they are in prison. That's not my focus. The focus is not on who that person is,
what that person has done and their life, but the focus should be, 'How can I
provide care and comfort to that person to make this a more natural process?'"
In the two hospice care rooms located in the infirmary at Jefferson City
Correctional Center (JCCC), offenders live out their final days. There's not
much to look at: two small paintings of a snowy landscape, a bulletin board
for photos of family and a single, narrow window just under the ceiling with a
view of a fence and barbed wire.
Kevin Dyal has been an inmate at JCCC for 18 years and is a volunteer in the
hospice program. He sits with his peers, reads to them, writes letters for them,
and he helps them come to terms with death.
One patient's death struck a chord with Dyal. He said the man wasn't able to
eat well. It was a man he had known for years. Although the man had been in
a bad mood for days, on this particular day, Dyal saw his spirits lift as he took
him through the halls of the hospice unit. And there was cake.
Dyal mixed the cake with Kool-Aid so that his patient could enjoy the treat.
But when Dyal left for a few minutes to tend to another patient, something
happened.

NHPCO NewsLine | Spring 2018

https://www.nhpco.org/sites/default/files/public/newsline/2010/April_10_NL.pdf

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NHPCO NewsLine Spring 2018