Prison Terminal is a documentary about the hospice program at the Iowa State Penitentiary. Like all hospice programs, they provide interdisciplinary care to persons who are dying (life expectancy of 6 months or less), and rely on the work of volunteers to provide key services and spend time with patients. The twist is that this program uses other inmates to help provide this care. While prison often invokes images of young men, this documentary points out that 3,000 inmates died in prisons last year, and that by 2025 one in four inmates in the U.S. is expected to be elderly as the cohort of persons incarcerated during the spike in drug related sentences in the 1980s-90s grows older and has increasing health care needs.
(h/t to Pallimed Blog one of the best hospice and palliative medicine blogs around)
