Colorado Prison Hospice Program Helps Prisoners Die With Dignity
The Denver Post
CAÑON CITY — Colorado's prison
population is aging quickly and more inmates than ever are sick with
illnesses that will kill them long before their sentences are up.
In
the first state prison hospice program in the nation, inmates of the
Colorado Territorial Correctional Facility in Cañon City are trained to
care for fellow prisoners as they follow the course of diseases such as
cancer, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C toward the inevitable.
Colorado's
total prison population more than doubled from 1991 to 2009, but the
number of inmates age 50 or older increased 720 percent, according to
"Old Behind Bars," a 2012 study by Human Rights Watch. Nationwide, the
number of people in prison who are 65 or older increased 67 percent in
only three years to 26,200 in 2010.
"We're treating more guys,"
said Dave Tessier, a chiropractor who runs the Territorial infirmary and
hospice program. "It's only going to get worse."
In a prison
where executioners once administered a poison cocktail to condemned men,
nurses now feed morphine into the arms of the dying for their comfort.
Men convicted of brutal crimes minister to the physical needs of the ill
and elderly, and sometimes find redemption in the role of caretaker.
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