Aging inmates Offenders learn from prison hospice program

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The men gathered around Ed Sloamer to say goodbye. They tousled what little hair remained on his head and patted him gently on the cheek. There were hugs, too, and words of encouragement.

Sloamer suffers from Alzheimer's disease, and the progressive, irreversible neurological disorder was requiring his move to a facility better able to take care of him.

Those saying goodbye weren't relatives in a hospital ward or caregivers at a nursing home. Rather, they were fellow inmates in the infirmary hospice wing of the Jefferson City Correctional Center.

Sloamer, who turned 72 last month, is serving two concurrent 30-year sentences for sodomy. The St. Louis man is 10 years into his sentence and was being moved to the Potosi Correctional Center, where the facilities are better equipped to handle him.

As he prepared to leave, Sloamer was surrounded by prisoners who are members of the Missouri Department of Corrections' hospice program. The offenders had been helping to care for Sloamer, one of 11 men under hospice care at the Jefferson City facility.

"It's hard to say goodbye," said Dennis Powell, a convicted murderer serving a sentence of life without the possibility of parole. "These people, they turn into friends."

'Nobody should die alone'

Powell, 42, is from Kansas City and has been locked up for almost 15 years. He came up with the idea for the hospice program after watching a television documentary in 1998 on a similar program at Angola Louisiana State Penitentiary. He approached Jefferson City superintendent Dave Dormire, and the program began in 2000.

"Prison is a very lonely place. One of the main feelings prisoners experience is isolation," Powell said. "So with the isolation they feel anyway and then being isolated from the general population or some friends they know, it just compounds the situation.

"Really, it was born out of the idea that nobody should die alone."

Hospice is a medieval word that originally meant a lodging or way station for travelers as a place for resting, refreshment and care. Today, hospice refers to an organized program offering care and concern to those facing a life-threatening illness.

In the prison program, volunteers provide and coordinate physical, emotional, spiritual and practical care.

Mary Jensen, executive director of Hospice of Jefferson City and Mid-Missouri, helped set up the program at the Jefferson City prison, which houses nearly 2,000 offenders. The program has since spread to other institutions around the state.

A total of 75 prisoners around the state are volunteering to assist 17 fellow inmates receiving care for terminal illnesses. The majority of the sick suffer from cancer or heart disease.

In addition to Jefferson City, the program is in place at Crossroads Correctional Center and Western Correction Center in Cameron, the Farmington Correctional Center, Missouri Eastern Correctional Center in Pacific, Moberly Correctional Center, Northeast Correctional Center in Bowling Green and the Potosi Correctional Center.

Volunteers benefit too

Dormire said the volunteers are benefiting, along with those they serve.

"You can see from talking to the inmates it is beneficial to both," he said.

One volunteer is Wallace Spivey, 41, a St. Louis man born deaf who has been imprisoned for more than half his life, serving a 50-year murder sentence.

"He started off wanting to help his friend, Ed Sloamer," said Richard Plummer, 58, of Carthage, who signs for the deaf and speaks for Spivey. "He enjoys helping people who can't take care of themselves."

Inmates receive eight weeks of training conducted by volunteers. They learn about the philosophy of hospice, the concept of dying, how to communicate with the terminally ill, familiarity with diseases and medical conditions, and the grieving process.

"I was caught up in making money and all that when I was on the street," said Bobby Powell, 38, originally from Texas County and serving life without parole for murder. "This is totally volunteer. What you get out of it ain't about money."