It is difficult for me to imagine how other people in the hospice that Terri Schiavo occupies are feeling. A hospice is a place one goes to die in peace but that can hardly be accomplished with hundreds of hostile, loud people standing outside your window and preventing your family members from visiting.
Thanks to operation rescue, this man died alone, without his family. Oh, and one other thing. In the attached picture, isn't that an American Flag that they are defacing? Aren't these the same people that passed a law against defacing the American Flag?
Pain of publicity intrudes on comfort for the dying
By DAVID KARP and CURTIS KRUEGER
Published March 22, 2005
PINELLAS PARK - As 73-year-old Thomas Bone prepared to die from incurable cancer, he had one wish.
He did not want to die alone, his family said.
So when a nurse at Hospice House Woodside told Bone's granddaughter to come Friday night, she ran from her room in the nearby family living quarters. She had no time to change out of her pajamas, and no time to grab her wallet.
If Jennifer Johnson had not been at the hospice where Terri Schiavo lives, she could have reached her grandfather quickly.
Instead, an officer stopped her and demanded identification - even though she says he had seen her come and go regularly. She called out to a hospice employee who vouched for her. Then she had to go through a metal detector.
"The whole time I'm telling him, "My grandfather is dying right now, I have to go,"' Johnson said. The whole thing took three to four minutes, she said.
When Johnson reached her grandfather's room, which was two doors down from Schiavo's room, a nurse told her it was one minute too late.
"I was detained for a few minutes," Johnson said Sunday. "But they were the most important minutes for my grandfather and family."
Pinellas Park police Capt. Michael Haworth denied that Johnson was detained three or four minutes, saying that a hospice employee overheard her plight and that she was taken "straight into the room." He said her wait was even less than the one to two minutes it would normally have taken.
Either way, the episode shows how security surrounding Schiavo has placed a strain on others who are dealing with life-and-death moments at the 72-bed hospice. All sides agree that the intense glare of publicity on the Schiavo case has forced the hospice and police to make security arrangements that otherwise would not be necessary.
"Our sympathy certainly goes out to this young woman and her family in her loss," said Mike Bell, vice president for development and community relations at Hospice of the Florida Suncoast. "I don't think any of us ever imagined how profoundly this unprecedented situation would affect all of us."
Managers have been forced to beef up security "to give (patients and families) a sense of security, a sense that their privacy would be protected," Bell said.
Most visitors are being routed through one entrance in the main building where Terri Schiavo is staying, Bell said. "Once you cross that threshold, the other 71 (patients) are having their own very private and uniquely personal journeys play out much as they usually do," he said.
Haworth said officers are checking visitors' identification and making sure they have been listed as confirmed guests. Haworth said officers are being cautious because, "We are truly the epicenter of news, there's no question, and what will the story be if a have a breach or someone would get to Terri?"
Haworth said officers making a sweep of the grounds early Sunday morning discovered two men crouching under a bush. The men said they had come onto the property to do "faith walks" and to pray for Terri. Both men, Ryan Michael Spinta, 20, of Chaska, Minn.; and Christopher Matthew Schiller, 27, of Edina, Minn.; were arrested.
Four other men were arrested Saturday for trespassing after approaching the hospice and saying they wanted to bring water to the 41-year-old woman whose feeding tube was removed Friday.
Johnson, 24, said she wanted to share her story in the hope that police and protesters will make conditions more bearable for other family members visiting the hospice.
"Everyone there is in a state of tragedy. Everyone has a loved one who is dying," Johnson said. "It causes such a terrible, extra circumstance to an already terrible situation."
An Air Force veteran, salesman and father of three, Bone was diagnosed two years ago with a terminal form of cancer in his brain stem, Johnson said. His family members cared for him at their home in Safety Harbor until three months ago, when he moved to the hospice in Pinellas Park.
Until two weeks ago, Johnson said she had no trouble coming and going at the hospice.
Then suddenly police set up barricades around the hospice to keep protesters out. Crowds gathered, chanting hymns and yelling into bullhorns. Television trucks camped outside.
Police also set up checkpoints along the hospice border and inside the grounds, Johnson said. Police cars and an RV-style command center filled the hospice's driveway.
Suddenly, families needed to present IDs to see dying relatives. Their bags were searched, and they had to submit to handheld metal detectors. Johnson said families could not take loved ones outside to walk around anymore.
"We are going in and out to see our dying family members, and it's like we are going in and out of a prison," she said.
Police even stopped patients who rolled up to the hospice in wheelchairs with medical equipment, she said.
Johnson said the hospice has provided good care for her grandfather, and she also said she understands police must protect Schiavo. She recognizes the national interest the Schiavo case has generated.
But people need to consider the pain other families are enduring at the hospice too, she said.
"She is not the only patient down there," Johnson said. "There are 70 other families, and all of us are having to go through this added struggle."
On Saturday, after her grandfather had died, the hospice removed the family's name from the approved visitor list. When they arrived to clear out his belongings, they were stopped again - an extra indignity piled onto their grief, Johnson said.
Once inside the hospice, they were questioned again as they cleared out their grandfather's room. Then on Sunday, as they finished cleaning up, the Johnsons decided to tell reporters camped outside about their plight. They were only able to say a few words before police told them to move along.
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