Posted on 02/28/2009 4:15:55 PM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
WAUPUN, WI — At 51, he looks two decades older.
His thin body is swallowed up by the afghan that covers his bed. The blanket's vibrant colors, and the powder-blue paint on the walls, make his gaunt face look even paler.
His chest is sunken, his limbs are fragile and doctors just found two new fractures in his spine. He is in some pain but says he's at peace in this place.
"I'm very comfortable here," he said in a voice one must strain to hear. "I wouldn't wish this on anybody or anything, but I would never get treated like this anywhere else."
Kaos Metz, who has end-stage liver disease, won't live to finish his 10-year sentence for causing injury while driving drunk and other alcohol-related crimes. But he's considered a success story, along with the 26 other prisoners who came here to die before him.
"They died well, and not alone," said Margie Barnes, coordinator for the hospice program that operates in one part of the prison hospital at Dodge Correctional Institution.
The program, a first for Wisconsin prisons, was 2 years old last month. Funded by inmate fees and donations, it draws terminally ill inmates with less than a year to live from all 19 of the state's adult-male prisons. Specially trained inmate volunteers provide most of the "comfort care" for which hospice programs, inside of prison or out, are best known.
That care includes sitting with patients, talking with them, writing letters for them, serving them meals, playing games and standing vigil around the clock — literally standing at their bedside — when death is imminent. On June 8, four inmate volunteers sang "Amazing Grace" as the hospice's youngest patient to date, Sellwyn Covington, a registered sex offender, died of cancer at age 28.
"You try to comfort them, as much as a person can," said inmate volunteer Triru Dillie, 36, who is serving a life sentence for murder. "We don't try to force anything on them. We find it is a privilege to be with them when they die."
'Right thing to do'
To those who would oppose granting anything special or more comfortable to prisoners — even on their death beds — Dodge staffers say hospice care isn't an extra and any debate over it isn't their fight.
"We don't consider ourselves the judge and jury," said Dodge prison guard Dawn Heeringa, who helps monitor the 62-bed infirmary, where two rooms have been dedicated for hospice patients, and a few more can be converted if needed.
What's more, as hospice care becomes more common in prisons around the country — 39 states offer it — and in the community, where the hospice movement began in the mid-1970s, it would be wrong to withhold it, officials said.
"This is the right thing to do," Warden Tim Lundquist said.
Hospice care in any setting is aimed at giving dying people support and more say over their final days. It reflects a gradual societal shift from the desire to prolong life at any cost to achieving the best quality of life in what time is left.
Doctors and nurses focus on the relief of pain and other symptoms, rather than on finding a cure, with a team of professionals and volunteers to address any emotional, spiritual and psychological needs.
At Dodge, prisoners entering hospice must understand they can't be cured and sign a form rejecting extraordinary methods to keep them alive. Officials believe that saves money, because it eliminates pointless tests and treatments, including visits to outside specialists and the security costs of transport.
Dodge's infirmary psychologist, Lynn Stock, said hospice even made the prison safer.
"When (other inmates) see staff demonstrate compassion toward dying patients, it creates more trust," Stock said. "It increases respect for staff."
Andy Land, who runs a community-based hospice in Fond du Lac as part of Agnesian Health Care, helped prison staff start the Dodge hospice and continues to provide training for its staff and volunteers. He is paid through a surcharge on prisoner phone calls.
"This is appropriate medical care," Land said. "This is not coddling."
Security, skepticism
Even so, the success of Dodge's program hasn't come easy, staff members said. Planners faced unique security challenges and some skepticism from within.
"We have to remember where we are," said Jim Hebel, a nursing supervisor who helped develop the hospice. "We are a medical facility, but we are in a maximum-security prison."
Some on the medical staff were concerned about giving narcotics to inmates with a criminal history of drug abuse, even for end-of-life pain relief. And the inmates themselves have been a tough sell, because many believe the system will always try to shortchange them.
"It's a constant education process," Heeringa said. "We have to sell hospice as a better way to die, and the rigidity of (prison) culture is a challenge we overcome daily."
Security chiefs balked at the idea of open doors on dying patients' rooms and at letting inmate volunteers be in the rooms at all without a constant guard, even though two officers and a sergeant continually monitor the infirmary floor on foot patrol and by camera.
Program planners eased security concerns by putting the hospice rooms near the floor's central nursing station for increased supervision, while convincing many nurses that the inmate volunteers could ease their immediate workloads.
But one major limitation could not be helped, staff members said. To safeguard against abuse, inmate volunteers are only allowed to touch hospice patients on their hands, elbows and shoulders, Hebel said.
Medical staff face the same restrictions, except as needed for specific procedures.
"We don't allow hugging," Hebel said. "It's kind of difficult for us, but when it comes to hugging, which is typical in (community-based) hospice, we have to draw the line. We don't want to endanger our program by not having a very definite standard."
The program does come with some extras that prisoners might otherwise not see, but they are either made by inmates or purchased through inmate fundraisers or donations from staff and patients' families. Extras includes the paint on the walls, white-lace curtains for the windows, quilts or afghans for the beds, special food, books, movies, fans, clocks and TVs.
"I have not seen one instance of abuse of the program," consultant Andy Land said, "because the inmates own it."
'Looking for redemption'
Kaos Metz, who had lived in Jefferson and Madison, arrived at the hospice in late January from the state prison in Oshkosh. By mid-February, as he was failing, his main hope was that his daughter and her baby, whom he had never met, would visit soon.
Hospice staff try to arrange for visits from outside friends and family. But for about one third of patients, no one comes, Barnes said.
That makes the job of inmate volunteers even more important, as they are perhaps the dying patients' only real confidantes and confessors.
"They serve a role that no other person can serve," Land said. "All the masks come off. Every single one of us has to answer the question, 'What have I done with my life?'"
And as the end nears, prisoners in hospice often look to reconnect with family and "make amends," Heeringa said.
"No question they are looking for redemption," she said.
To be hospice volunteers, inmates must have good conduct records and pass personality tests, followed by 16 hours of training. They aren't paid and must commit to the work — typically in two-hour shifts — for at least two years, on top of their required prison jobs.
Inmate volunteer Dennis Gordanier, 37, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sexual assault, said volunteers get to be present for moments that range from sad to angry to harrowing to uplifting, sometimes all with the same person.
"(One patient) flat-out came to me and said, 'Do you think I'm going to meet the Lord?'" Gordanier said. "And it was the greatest feeling in the world to be able to tell him yes."
It can be difficult when patients die, he said, especially if the death isn't an easy one.
"But you know they won't suffer anymore," he added. "They're going away from all that. It's a bittersweet thing."
Metz died at 3:10 a.m. Wednesday. He never had a visit from his daughter, who lives in Michigan, or his nine-month-old grandson. Staff were trying to set it up, but bad weather and other circumstances got in the way.
"Time ran out," Barnes said.
Unlike their random VICTIMS. *Rolleyes*
If inmates are paying for it themselves and volunteering themselves, I have nothing to say about it. Let them. It seems a positive thing.
I’m still deciding on this. Having been a crime victim, and having to raise someone else’s kids while their ‘mother’ was out racking up 6 DUIs, and numerous stints in rehab and prison, I’m a little jaded. ;)
Jesus forgave men ...who found guilty by other standards...while on the Cross.
God Bless the caregivers, volunteers, and yes the inmates that they may find Jesus...while they hang on that cross too.
Hopefully some of the other inmates will find love, mercy and compassion in comforting the dying.
Diana..so you don’t believe in mercy in any circustance? No forgiveness, not even in death?
Well, maybe some of them will develop more respect for life in caring for the dying.
Where was the mercy for their victims? They weren’t drugged into a stupor to dwindle away pain-free in their last days or moments. Life was TAKEN from them, forcefully and mercilessly. And if they weren’t killed, as in the result of being raped or maimed and still left alive...that life is ruined, too.
It’s not up to me to judge in the end. That’s God’s job. However, I wish VICTIMS would get a fair shake. They don’t. They get a funeral and maybe a headstone, and if they were greatly loved, a memory or two in those they left behind.
Those of you that can dole out the mercy must not have ever had anything taken from you in a violent manner, or else you’re much bigger people than I am, which could be the case.
There is a time to forgive.
Why doesn’t anyone here give a rip about the victims of crime? And who cares if I forgive...ultimately, it doesn’t mean a thing.
What happened to my family isn’t eating me alive; this prisoner stuff always annoys me to no end when you think about the horrific crimes they’ve committed against others in their lives. Why aren’t these dogs put down in the first place?
Take a life, give your life in turn.
Will ‘forgiving’ prisoners being punished by society for their crimes make the outcome any different? Will it turn back the clock for the victims and their families?
I do care, but at some point, it is time to separate the wheat from the chaff.
pointsal
One morning my husband got up and left to go to work. I did not get up with him as I had worked very late the night before.
As I laid dozing in our bed a man jimmied the window to our apartment open, cut the phone line, found a knife and came into the bedroom...
That morning I became a victim of a violent crime. The neighbors in the other apartments had left for work too and I had to find my way to the payphone to call for help.
Today if I heard the man who had serial raped several dozen women & girls was dying in prison...I would wish him peace and the ability to believe in things bigger than himself. Would I want him released? NO. But I can find room for his soul, if he can find room for Jesus.
Tough but true, EMH, God bless and continually heal you.
Everybody should be allowed to die with minimum amount of dignity regardless they deserve it or not
That's a good thing.
I’m going to let this one digest until morning. I’m not changing my opinion, but those of you that feel compelled to help Evil find it’s way off to Heaven in a kindly manner when no kindness was shown to the victims can go on placating yourselves. ;)
If ALL is ultimately forgiven, why even bother to punish anyone in the first place?
It is truly a delight to see one so utterly without sin that there is nothing for which she has to seek forgiveness, from Man or from God, and being freed of the need to seek for herself will deny it to all others.
What’s your secret?
Our family was violently ripped apart by false accusations over 23 years ago. Our only child was kidnapped by state workers and held prisoner for 7 years. We suffered immeasurable agony not knowing her condition or her whereabouts. We paid a heavy price for standing up with the Truth. We never compromised with the darkness. Yet the shame of it all has kept my blessed husband silent. Your posting really injured his soul. Attitudes like yours still fill us with fear and quiet outrage. It is really quite a challenge to reach forgiveness in our hearts toward ignorant and hateful people like you.
However, following the example of Christ Jesus, my Lord, my friend, I choose to forgive you and let Him be your judge. I challenge you to love the prisoners as He has loved us all. Take your grief and anger to Him and let Him transform it into Peace.
In His love,
LibreOuMort
Ping
Diana, you are a voice of sanity here. Thank you.
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