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Patty Daugherty, RN, is on the inside looking out across
the grounds of the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility
for Women in Clinton, N.J. She sees herself in graduate
school, possibly in the fall, working to become a nurse
practitioner specializing in adult care. Then, she'll
return to the prison or another correctional facility.
As health services administrator at Edna Mahan, the
only women's prison in New Jersey, Daugherty runs its
hospital and eight-bed infirmary and oversees mental
health care for about 1,100 inmates. The campuslike
facility of minimum- and maximum-security buildings,
many of them dating to the 1800s, is a mile off the
beaten path-a mile called Freedom Road.
Inmates range from parole violators to lifers, from
19-year-olds to one woman in her 70s. "Some of
these women come for life. They're going to die in prison,"
Daugherty said.
In the meantime, it's up to her and her employer, Correctional
Medical Services, which has a contract with the state,
to see to it that prisoners' lives are long and healthy
from the moment they are transformed from citizen to
inmate. Daugherty's round-the-clock staff includes a
physician medical director, a part-time physician, a
full-time nurse practitioner who runs a chronic disease
clinic, RNs and LPNs.
Corrections nurses use all their skills, Daugherty
said, beginning with assessments before an intake physical
that includes a chest X-ray, Pap test and mental health
exam. "You see everything from smashed fingers
to little emergencies," she said. "We do the
chronic care things. We do acute care. We have cancer
patients. We have women who are having babies. We have
the infectious things."
For her first nine months at Edna Mahan, Daugherty,
48, was the infection control nurse, dealing with conditions
that aren't rare in the general population, but are
particularly high among the incarcerated: HIV and AIDS,
hepatitis C and sexually transmitted diseases. "Lots
of chlamydia, some syphilis and a few cases of gonorrhea,"
Daughtery said. "With some of the women, it almost
seems as if they don't take care of themselves at all
and they come to prison to get the medical care they
need."
Daugherty said she saw a newspaper ad for a county
corrections nurse and went for an interview just to
see what it was like inside a prison. "I thought
this was the only opportunity I was going to have,"
she said, which is a good thing when you consider that
the other way to see it is as an inmate. "It looked
pretty fascinating and kind of scary and that appealed
to me," she said.
It wasn't long before Daugherty was working as a corrections
nurse in Northampton County, near her home in Nazareth,
Pa. That was 1998, and she's been in and out of the
penal system since, en route to Edna Mahan. What she's
learned along the way is that she feels safest and happiest
on the inside.
Daugherty's children-two sons and a daughter-were apprehensive
when she settled on a career in corrections. "They
all thought 'Oh, the inmates are going to eat you alive,
Mom,' " she said.
Their worry was well-intentioned, albeit needless.
For one thing, Daugherty said she doesn't get involved
in disciplining inmates. "We're not there to judge
them. I don't know why most of them are there. I don't
want to know."
Her dangerous days as an RN were on the outside, as
a home health nurse and with a public health bureau
in the Allentown-Bethlehem, Pa., area. "Some of
the areas I went into as a home health nurse were so
bad that I needed police escorts," she said. "I
also had an area I went into where I had to go between
6 and 7 in the morning because if I went too late, everyone
was awake and it was too dangerous. I always had my
cell phone with me and my pepper spray. I'm so much
safer in the prison than I was on the street."
Furthermore, most inmates realize that nurses and hospital
staff are there to help them, Daugherty said.
The public misconception is that you can always get
a job in prisons because they're desperate, but that's
not the way Daugherty works. Edna Mahan struggled for
a while with the national nursing shortage, but it's
nearly at full staff now. "I set standards very
high," Daugherty said. "If I don't think they'll
fit in with my staff or that they have the assessment
skills they need and I don't think they're dependable,
I don't hire them. I only want the best."
Occasionally, when things become particularly stressful
at the hospital, Daugherty said she takes walks across
the grounds, populated with deer and geese, to the chapel
and small cemetery that dates back to the 1800s when
Edna Mahan founded the prison for pregnant women. In
a way, Daugherty is stepping back to her roots.
"My grandmother worked in this prison," for
a few weeks, training as an officer, Daugherty said.
"She told me stories about it when I was a little
girl. And I thought 'Oh my gosh!' I couldn't imagine
my sweet little old Irish grandmother working in a prison.
And here I am."
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