Big Bend Hospice has collaborated with local officials to unveil a new inpatient unit at the Leon County Detention Facility (LCDF) in Florida.

The project has been two years in the making, according to Amanda Gustafson, COO at Big Bend Hospice. The Leon County Sheriff’s Office reached out to the Florida-based hospice provider for support in caring for dying incarcerated individuals.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on June 6 to commemorate the new incarcerated inpatient unit’s opening.

“The goal is to really ensure that anyone, regardless of who they are or what they’ve done, has access to end-of-life services,” Gustafson told Hospice New. “[LCDF] is very, very committed to caring for these [individuals]. They approached us after someone died and didn’t have hospice available to them. They really wanted to develop this room as a home-like environment.”

Big Bend Hospice works with LCDF to sponsor the unit, which houses a private patient room inside the correctional center’s medical facility. The space is designed to help transition patients from general incarcerated population settings once they are no longer ambulatory or have a terminal prognosis with one week or less to live.

Services at the unit will mirror those provided in a home-based setting, with differences such as correctional officers attending patient visits, Gustafson said. The incarcerated unit is aimed at supporting an actively dying individual with unique physical, emotional and spiritual needs.

“We’re providing a dedicated space where we can come in and provide humane treatment for someone at the end of life,” Big Bend Hospice CEO Bill Wertman told Hospice News. “It does take time if you want to provide services in these facilities with incarcerated individuals, but have to start somewhere. Begin the dialogue and be prepared to go the distance.”

Through the new unit, the hospice serves as liaison with family members and provides grief support. Family members are able to visit and remain at the bedside with their loved ones in a peaceful environment, “far removed from the sterility of their regular cell setting,” the organization said in an announcement.

Established in 1983, Big Bend Hospice provides care across eight counties in Florida. In addition to hospice, the nonprofit provides palliative and bereavement care. Its other services include music and animal therapy, veterans care, advance directive assistance and family caregiver education and resources.

The hospice providers’ new inpatient unit marks an “innovative” move, Gustafson said. No other incarcerated settings across the organization’s eight-county service region have a dedicated hospice space, she explained.

Providing hospice to incarcerated populations will hopefully demonstrate that Big Bend Hospice is a “good steward” and “great community partner” to other referral sources throughout the state, Gustafson stated.

The new unit provides a supportive environment with deep consideration of the complicated intricacies that incarcerated families experience at the end of life, Wertman said.

“Being incarcerated throws an additional kind of wrench into the whole care program,” he said. “The facility provides the majority of the care, and then we pick up what we can as a hospice provider based on what they’ll permit us to do. It’s a little bit of an anomaly because it’s a very new process we’re starting, with a comprehensive social work and community outreach program. We will follow the same model that we do for anybody else with regards to what we can do for the incarcerated patient and their family dynamic.”

Correctional facilities have seen rising demand for end-of-life support as aging populations swell in these settings in recent years. The trend has led to challenges at global levels such as strained prison staff, increased burnout and lacking bereavement support for families.

A main goal is to build upon the care model at the LCDF facility and expand hospice services across prisons in surrounding rural areas lacking access, according to Wertman. Additional plans include expanding similar programs at the Federal Correctional Institution, which is located in Big Bend Hospice’s headquarters of Tallahassee, Florida.

The collaboration was formed over many thoughtful conversations and discussions about shared values between Big Bend Hospice Leon County Chief Craig Carroll and leaders from YesCare, which provides health care in correctional facilities.

Launching a new inpatient unit in an incarceration facility comes with the same mission of providing quality end-of-life support as in any other setting, Wertman said. Important for hospices stepping into incarcerated settings is having the ability to provide unbiased, individualized and person-centered care, he indicated.

“I would recommend this very human endeavor that has more to do with the humanity of the hospice benefit,” Wertman told Hospice News. “It’s not about the money, it’s what our mission of hospice is about — to provide a level of care regardless of a person’s ability to pay, or their stature or status in the community. It does not have a bearing on how the hospice benefit is utilized. It’s not about the money, it’s about humanity.”