Question Mark
What Are the Unique Needs of Prisoners With Cancer?
[By Mark Vrabel, MLS, AHIP, ELS, ONS Information Resources Supervisor]
Accreditation organizations such as the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) provide specialty standards and guidance for improving the quality of health care in jails, prisons, and juvenile confinement facilities. Lorry Schoenly, PhD, RN, CCHP, has been a nurse for 25 years and is on the national taskforce working to develop a correctional nursing certification (CCHP–RN) with NCCHC. Her Web presence at www.correctionalnurse.net provides a forum to interpret correctional health care to the public and healthcare community; I asked her about her experience as a correctional nurse and, more specifically, about information on inmates with cancer, and here is her response.
Correctional nurses must be adept at a variety of nursing specialties to accommodate the various medical needs of the inmate population. Prisons and jails are encouraged to perform common screenings for major cancers during the medical intake process. The inmate patient population generally has not taken advantage of regular medical care, and correctional medical services are often their first contact with organized medicine. Cancers are found that are well progressed due to a lack of regular medical screening.
Most state prison systems accommodate to some level the needs of inmates with cancer. Larger states have prison hospitals with hospice units. County jails are more challenging because they have fewer resources and the short stays allow only for emergency treatments. Some programs permit fellow inmates to provide nonmedical comfort care to hospice patients after appropriate training, such as the Connecticut Department of Correction Hospice and Palliative Care Program Inmate Volunteer Program. These programs can be a very humanizing activity in a very dehumanizing environment. Penn State University was recently awarded a National Institutes of Nursing Research grant to study end-of-life care in the Pennsylvania prison system. This will help give greater attention to patients with cancer in the later stages of their condition. The National Prison Hospice Association is a useful resource for obtaining additional information on hospice and end-of-life care in the correctional setting.
Mark Vrabel, MLS, AHIP, ELS, is the information resources supervisor for the Oncology Nursing Society. He replies to any and all questions sent to library@ons.org or clinical@ons.org (indirectly, sometimes assisting the nurses who handle this Clinical Questions service), and you can ask him questions by following him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ONSmark. Read more articles by Mark Vrabel —
Used with permission from ONS Connect: The official magazine of the Oncology Nursing Society
Joyce Harrell says
As an Oncology Nurse, my heart goes out to the inmate with cancer. They come to our facility with a leg and arm shackled to the bed. 2 guards always accompany. One patient in particular had a pain management need. I remember before he was discharged one night, calling the corrections facility to ensure he would have access to the prescribed pain medication once he left our facility. Some medications may not be readily available and it was important to me that he receive the same care in the facility that he was able to receive with us.