Halawa inmates find mercy in caring for sick and dying

They wake up early, grab breakfast and head to a shift of cleaning up urine and feces and vomit and blood that stretches for 14 hours or more. They do this every day, seven days a week. They love this job. They’re proud to do it.

Chris Almeida, 39, and Benjamin Pada, 28, both inmates at Halawa Correctional Facility, work as medical aides in the prison infirmary, doing mostly janitorial work but also helping care for inmates who are older and frail. They dress them, comb their hair, help them out of bed and into chairs. It is work that requires physical strength and mental toughness. It also requires compassion.

“If you don’t have a heart, you can’t work here,” Almeida said.

There are sometimes up to five medical aides working in the Halawa infirmary, but at the moment, Almeida and Pada are the only two. It’s a tough job to fill. The selection process is “rigorous,” Pada said, and there is a long list of requirements before an inmate can even apply for the workline: He can’t be a sex offender or a gang member, can’t have a background of drug charges or violent crimes, or a history of escape. On top of that, he has to have the right temperament to do all the dirty work, take whatever the patients in the psychiatric unit fling their way, care for former tough guys now in hospice, and be gentle with people in a setting that is not gentle at all.

“We have a rare level of trust. We’re around chemicals, sharp objects and patients,” Pada said. “I like having that responsibility.”

Both men are new to this work. Pada started three months ago, Almeida has been working for a month. Both talk about the job like they’ve been there a long time. They talk about their patients like they’ve known them forever.

“I think in my mind, this could be my grandpa,” Almeida said about helping a patient shower or dress. “I try to make the best of whatever situation they’re living with. If I have a minute, I sit with them, talk story. Some people in here don’t have family, so I know I’m the closest thing to a family member taking care of them. I joke around with them and tease them the same way I would tease my family or friends.”

They bring water, listen to complaints, call the nurse for a patient. Part of their job is simply providing moral support, speaking words of encouragement as they’re mopping the unit.

“Some just want to lay in bed. I tell them, ‘You should get up, do a couple of laps around the unit. Don’t just lie there and waste away,’” Pada said.

The concept of time takes on extra significance for these men. Some of the patients they see are dying and know they will not live to see their parole. “Some of them literally have a timeline. Like an expiration date,” Pada said. “One man just found out he has four months. That hit us hard.”

Almeida is serving a 12-1/2 year sentence for criminal property damage and reckless endangerment stemming from a high-speed car chase with police in 2007. Pada was sentenced to 15 years for a robbery in 2009. When I asked each man why he’s incarcerated, their demeanor changed. They no longer project competent, trusted medical aides who enjoy their work. They are prisoners with downcast eyes, reduced to their past deeds.

Pada’s name seems familiar. Later, as I’m writing this, I take a moment to look him up.

He is the son of Kimberly Pada, who spent 20 years in prison for horrific abuse of her other child, Reubyne Buentipo, in a 1997 case that drew a great deal of media attention and community outrage. The boy was 4 at the time. The abuse left Reubyne in a permanent vegetative state, requiring round-the-clock care. Benjamin Pada, Reubyne’s half brother and older by three years, is here now, caring for men who are fragile and sometimes forgotten by family.

While working in the infirmary recently, Pada helped an old man get ready for his release. “He was in for 23 years,” Pada said. “He was preparing to get out for so long, but when it was time for him to leave, I went to get him and he was sleeping.” Pada laughed, remembering the moment. “I told him, ‘Wake up! You’re free!’”

Pada got the man out of bed, helped him with his oxygen tank and walked him to the door of the locked unit where he said goodbye. “I was genuinely happy for him,” Pada said, “and I pictured myself someday, too.”

He meant he pictured the someday when he is free, but also the someday when he is frail and in need of someone to wake him up and help him get to where he needs to be.

“I just hope my son loves me enough to take care of me like this when I’m old,” Pada said.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.