Nebraska inmates provide hospice care for fellow prisoners

Nebraska inmates provide hospice care for fellow prisoner 
ABC KETV 7, Omaha, NE; by Mary Regli; 11/12/24 
When you're in prison, there comes a point when either your sentence or your life comes to an end. The Nebraska Department of Correctional Services has come up with an idea to help inmates in either situation-- at no additional cost. They're transforming the prison from the inside out with a new program that's providing palliative and end-of-life care for incarcerated individuals. The prisoners we met are all serving time for heinous crimes. The purpose of the program is to have other inmate volunteers provide final care for dying or critically ill prisoners and help with their rehabilitation. "In the end of life, it doesn't really matter what you've done or what reason you're here; you're still a human, and you still deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. And this program embodies that," said Lori Palik, the department's director of nurses. Volunteers go through a ten-week program where they learn what they need to be able to care for their fellow inmates. 
Editor's note: This program may be new to Nebraska, but not to hospice care in prisons nationwide. For more about the 1998 origins of this now-national program, visit our article from February 2024, Death and redemption in an American prison, telling a personal story from Angola prison, New Orleans.