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CorrectCare
Birth
and Death Behind Bars
Compassionate Programs Ease
the Trauma
Incarceration disrupts or
distorts many patterns in the lives of those who are confined.
Yet even concrete walls and steel bars cannot stop the
biological processes that delimit human life: birth and death.
Today, trends such as growing numbers of incarcerated women,
aging inmate populations and longer sentences mean that
correctional health care providers increasingly are forced to
cope with these momentous life cycle events, and not just on a
case-by-case basis. The articles below describe two programs—one
for pregnant women, one for dying men—that have taken
decidedly compassionate approaches toward meeting the needs of
their patients. In both cases the effects have rippled, touching
the caregivers and others as almost as profoundly as the
patients themselves.
[These articles first appeared in the
Spring 2002 issue of CorrectCare.]
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