The history of prison hospice

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By Ann McGlynn | Saturday, April 26, 2008 |

A convict who smuggled and sold enough cocaine to land himself in federal prison for 14 years, Fleet Maull is one of the people who launched what is believed to be the first prison-based hospices.

Maull, who now lives in Colorado, was an inmate at the federal prison hospital in Springfield, Mo., when the hospice unit opened there in 1988.

“I was 35 years old when I went to prison. I had been through a lot of craziness,” he said. “I was devastated by what I had done. My son was 9 years old. It really created a huge mess. The process of remorse and regret I went through was really intense. I decided to use talents for others.”

He and a fellow prisoner worked to gain permission to begin the hospice unit. Maull was particularly moved by inmates who were sequestered because they had AIDS.

Maull began the National Prisoner Hospice Association in 1991. Released in 1999, Maull remains its leader, as well as for the Prison Dharma Network. Maull is a Buddhist.

Maull estimates between 55 and 60 prisons nationwide have hospice units. The ones that are most successful bring in fellow inmates to provide the day-to-day grooming, feeding and companionship for the dying.

“Prisoners have a pretty strong sense of radar,” he said. “They can check out who they can trust pretty quickly.”

Dying inmates are often isolated from others because of their medical condition, Maull said. Most get few visits from family or friends.

“Inmate hospice volunteers become surrogate family members and primary caregivers,” Maull said. “Every life has dignity. People in prison can turn their lives around. People who have to spend their whole lives in prison can have lives of dignity.”

Prison hospice in Iowa

The Iowa Department of Corrections has hospice programs at its prisons in Mount Pleasant, Anamosa, Oakdale, Mitchellville and Fort Madison. The unit at Fort Madison is self-sufficient, said warden John Ault, supported by the sales of flavored water to inmates and donations from prison staff members, inmates and family members of inmates who have died in hospice.

Prison inmates aging

Iowa’s prisoners are getting older, according to a report from the Iowa Department of Corrections.

In 1985, 4 percent of the prison population was 51 years or older. In 2005, that number had increased to 8 percent.

At the same time, the percentage of inmates between the ages of 31 and 50 increased from less than a third to nearly half, officials said.

“As inmates get older, they require increased costs for medical attention and pharmaceuticals,” the report states. In one Iowa prison study, inmates age 55 and older made up 4.8 percent of the population but were responsible for more than 10 percent of prescriptions, medical conditions, assistive devices, nurse visits and physician visits.