For Katrina
Inside Logan’s healthcare unit, Katrina Giles fought for her life—and her freedom.
By Erika Ray
Hospital rooms often fill our senses with the security of cleanliness and structure. The smell of bleach, the pressed white sheets, and the pastel colors uniformly featured on each wall embolden patients and visitors to remain calm as a battle between illness and will transpires.
In prisons, the cells allotted for the health care purposes are not truly intended for use on winter days, when the outside temperatures are below zero. The heating system might be broken. Food must be brought from different buildings, so it is cold when it arrives to patients, and access to phones, televisions, or electronic devices is restricted. When an incarcerated person meets with Wexford Health Sources, IDOC’s healthcare provider, or onsite doctors for medical treatment, the patient is required to stay in one of theses cells. Sadly, patients are aware of the lack of care and the inhumane treatment awaiting them.
So, upon entering the cell assigned to Katrina Giles, you might not be surprised as I describe the unfinished concrete floor she had to walk across in order to use the restroom, the thin prison mattress provided by IDOC for her to sleep on, and the paint-chipped walls and door separating her from the general population at Logan Correctional Center.
Katrina’s presence provoked love, humility, and appreciation as I entered her cell alongside fellow NPEP classmates and friends Elbonie Burnside and Margaret DeFrancisco. The health care administrator allowed us to visit Katrina and ask her questions about the status of her health and her hopes for the future. We learned that Katrina and her legal team filed a petition for medical clemency and that Katrina’s father made adjustments to his home so that he could care for her in her last days. Over the course of several visits, we asked her a barrage of questions.
“What’s your diagnosis? When did you start feeling sick? Did you notify staff, and how did they respond? What standard of care are you receiving?” On and on we went, talking between questions, laughing at each other’s jokes, and giving her space to eat lunch and get some rest when she needed it.
Through the many questions we asked Katrina, one of her answers will always stay with me. I asked her, “What is your biggest fear?” Katrina responded, “Dying in this cell.”
“If I die here, I’ll never be free,” she continued. “You guys will get to go home, but people will always say that’s the room where Katrina died. People won’t want to be housed in this room. The stigma of ‘she died in here’ will never go away.”
Katrina’s response left a frigid silence in the air. Breaking through the silence was J. Cole’s song “The Climb Back” blaring through her small headphones that were plugged into my GTL tablet. “Everything comes back around full circle...”
I thought, is this a full circle moment? Does anyone deserve to have a life encircled by domestic, sexual, or institutional violence? Should anyone have to fear a death that is trapped inside four corners of decay?
My eyes shifted to the window behind Katrina, and I asked her if she ever looks out of her cell window. She answered, “No.” I asked her, “Why not?” She responded, “I don’t know.” I think that it goes without saying that Katrina’s determination to be free was connected to her resistance to looking out of the window.
After two attempts, Katrina was granted medical clemency. She was able to go home to her father and live out the remainder of her life feeling loved and supported. The hard truth is that I’m sure in many ways she feared death. I’m sure she feared leaving her partner, leaving her father, and losing her dreams of a second chance. The complexities of fear are layered through an experience like Katrina’s, but hope repudiates fear.
Katrina’s resilience and willingness to hope has inspired us all. In an environment where devastation is the norm, a warrior like Katrina who battled fear and illness shows us that we must always demand, command, and nurture hope within ourselves and each other. Now when I walk past the health care unit, I look up at the window of Katrina’s old cell, and I see lipstick prints. Kisses she planted on the glass before her final goodbye to Logan’s health care unit.
