I am not only an alumnus of hospitals but also, as both a lawyer and minister, prisons. What do they have to do with caregiving? See if you spot similarities.

Death Row:

“You can’t comprehend the hell ,” Glenn, growled at me during out first meeting on a sunny Sunday in 2012.

Was he talking about his suffering in a cancer unit? A mental hospital? Being trapped under a car?

Glenn was trapped. A pane of bulletproof glass separated us. His ankles bore chains.  Convicted of a double murder, he lived with a death sentence.

The hell Glenn correctly described as beyond my understanding was a cell on Tennessee’s Death Row. No one visited him. That is why, as a recently ordained minister, I volunteered help.

Glenn instantly delivered two blunt instructions: “Don’t expect me to trust you and don’t give me any Christian bull****.”

He sketched his hell: “I’m alone 23 hours a day. My one hour “outside” is in a steel cage with a concrete floor and a basketball rim. I haven’t touched grass in seven years. In the showers, I have to keep my head on a swivel.”

He receives another unwritten punishment. Caged like a wild animal, he is treated like one.

Prisons and hospitals? Both are designed for safety.

It is not the physical settings we can change. It is the staff culture inside where change delivers lifesaving humanity.

We know this, but hospitals that practice it are rare. Compassion and curing are not seen as necessary partners! We know prison/hospital differences.

Consider similarities:

Both judges and doctors can deliver news of imminent death or prolonged pain. Neither required to give loving care.

Prisoner’s clothes become orange uniforms. Patients find themselves wearing an equally humiliating uniform.

Hard to say which is more degrading.

Prison numbers. Patient numbers.

Cells with a stranger.  Semi privates with a stranger.

PA systems announcing the end of visiting hours in both?

The power/disempower tension in hospitals is unintended but palpable.

Patient: sick. Professional: healthy.

Professional: knowledgeable. Patient: ignorant.

Caregiver: vertical. Patient: horizontal

Home atmosphere: warmth, family, freedom. Prison/hospital, cold, strangers, restricted.

Both prisoners and patients (unless AMA) need permission to leave.

We cannot change the building. We can change the people.

JCAHO is not going to require loving care. Hospitals can.

It would be nice if prisons practiced radical loving care. Cultures of Radical Loving Care should be required in all hospitals.

Otherwise, if you want to feel like a prisoner, check into a hospital.

-Erie Chapman

Hospitals And Prisons: How Both Threaten Loving Care

I am not only an alumnus of hospitals but also, as both a lawyer and minister, prisons. What do they have to do with caregiving? See if you spot similarities.

Death Row:

“You can’t comprehend the hell ,” Glenn, growled at me during out first meeting on a sunny Sunday in 2012.

Was he talking about his suffering in a cancer unit? A mental hospital? Being trapped under a car?

Glenn was trapped. A pane of bulletproof glass separated us. His ankles bore chains.  Convicted of a double murder, he lived with a death sentence.

The hell Glenn correctly described as beyond my understanding was a cell on Tennessee’s Death Row. No one visited him. That is why, as a recently ordained minister, I volunteered help.

Glenn instantly delivered two blunt instructions: “Don’t expect me to trust you and don’t give me any Christian bull****.”

He sketched his hell: “I’m alone 23 hours a day. My one hour “outside” is in a steel cage with a concrete floor and a basketball rim. I haven’t touched grass in seven years. In the showers, I have to keep my head on a swivel.”

He receives another unwritten punishment. Caged like a wild animal, he is treated like one.

Prisons and hospitals? Both are designed for safety.

It is not the physical settings we can change. It is the staff culture inside where change delivers lifesaving humanity.

We know this, but hospitals that practice it are rare. Compassion and curing are not seen as necessary partners! We know prison/hospital differences.

Consider similarities:

Both judges and doctors can deliver news of imminent death or prolonged pain. Neither required to give loving care.

Prisoner’s clothes become orange uniforms. Patients find themselves wearing an equally humiliating uniform.

Hard to say which is more degrading.

Prison numbers. Patient numbers.

Cells with a stranger.  Semi privates with a stranger.

PA systems announcing the end of visiting hours in both?

The power/disempower tension in hospitals is unintended but palpable.

Patient: sick. Professional: healthy.

Professional: knowledgeable. Patient: ignorant.

Caregiver: vertical. Patient: horizontal

Home atmosphere: warmth, family, freedom. Prison/hospital, cold, strangers, restricted.

Both prisoners and patients (unless AMA) need permission to leave.

We cannot change the building. We can change the people.

JCAHO is not going to require loving care. Hospitals can.

It would be nice if prisons practiced radical loving care. Cultures of Radical Loving Care should be required in all hospitals.

Otherwise, if you want to feel like a prisoner, check into a hospital.

-Erie Chapman