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Updated February 17, 2005
Volunteers of America (Alexandria, VA) the organization that for more than 100 years has offered support to prisoners, parolees and their families, is spearheading a project to address the end-of-life care provided to the nation's men and women incarcerated in prisons.
The project, called GRACE, in collaboration with the corrections departments in New York, North Carolina, Oregon and the Federal Medical Center for Women in Texas, creates in-house hospice services within their prisons and correctional institutions.
The hospice programs include state-of-the-art pain management, an educational program for corrections health staff and other corrections staff, as well as a program to train inmates as hospice volunteers.
Collaborators in the project include the American Correctional Association, the Center to Improve Care of the Dying, and the National Prison Hospice Association. Given that over 3,000 incarcerated individuals die annually, many of them isolated, suffering and in severe physical pain, such a program is long-since necessary, the project organizers say.
The project is developing recommended "Standards for Hospice and Palliative Care in Correctional Settings" and producing a resource manual.
Promoting Excellence in End-of-Life Care is a national program of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation dedicated to long-term changes in health care institutions to substantially improve care for dying people and their families. Visit PromotingExcellence.org for more resources.
