NONPROFIT PROFILE Humane Prison Hospice Project: Training Prisoners in Compassionate End-of-Life Care ROBERT ROSBOROUGH
A large majority of Americans want to die at home and not in a hospital. The reality is just the opposite. But in theory at least most of us have a choice. When your home is a pris-
on, the choice is rarely up to you. And for most prisoners, neither choice provides much in the way of palliative care. Humane Prison Hospice Project (“Humane”) seeks to change that. Founded on the belief that compassionate end-of-life care is a basic human right, Humane trains prisoners as hospice volunteers in end-of-life care and grief
support. American society still struggles when dealing with death. Most people prefer to avoid the topic even when it’s necessary to address. While palliative care is a growing field in the medical profession, it is still something of neglected stepchild. Our image of doctors and nurses is heroic, doing everything they can to save lives. In many places, the word
“hospice” is taboo, an admission of defeat. Most prisoners don’t have the problem of too much life-saving care. Their reality is being cared for by cell mates who are improvising the best they can: “Before my cellmate of five years passed, he begged me to take care of him. So I did. I fed him. I cleaned him up. When he had to go to the hospital, he fought
them. He wanted to come back. Him dying made me want to change. He was my friend. The person who took care of him, that was a good part of me.” (Lenny, quoted in Wendy MacNaughton’s California Sunday Magazine article, “Meanwhile in San Quentin.”) Only one prison in California has a formal hospice—the California Medical Prison in Vacaville. My friend Sandy Fish co-founded Humane in 2016. Death has been a thread running through her life and her life’s mission. She is an actress who did extensive research into prisons for an early role in the play Getting Out. (If you were a fan of the Netflix show Sense8, you’ve seen Sandy.) After moving to Marin, she became a trained hospice volunteer and can trace the founding of Humane to a moment in conversation with wellknown Marin lawyer Mike Satris (who went on to sit on Humane’s advisory board until his sudden death in 2020). She asked Mike
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