| Every year, a small number of the dying inmates in the California prison system spend their last hours in the hospice of the California Medical Facility at Vacaville. In December 2002, Sarah and I visited the hospice on assignment for the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper. Four patients spoke to us that afternoon and allowed me to take their photographs. | ||
CMF Vacaville is the central medical facility for the entire California inmate population of more than 150,000. Although the hospice can only serve a maximum of 16 patients at any given time, its impact cannot be measured solely in numbers. A senior nurse told us that the presence of the hospice had a beneficial effect on the whole institution. Before the facility opened in 1993, she said bluntly, "people were dropping like flies." There was a lot of anger in the system. Now things have changed. The staff are skilled and compassionate. One patient said he never dreamed he would spend his last days in a place like this. |
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