After nurses at Virginia Commonwealth University Health saved his younger brother’s life, Delvin Henderson wanted to find a way to say thank you.
But he couldn’t just walk into the hospital.
Henderson is incarcerated at the Greensville Correctional Center, near Jarratt, so he asked his father, Paul Taylor, to make a delivery and enlisted the men on his prison pod to write letters, too. Many of them have been treated at the hospital or by nurses who visit the prison, but some also cited the strain that the pandemic has put on the medical field as their motivation for thanking the nurses.
“Warm hearts behind cold walls,” Henderson said he called the project. “We just came together and said let’s pat them on the back. Let’s give them a hug in our own way and make their day better because they always focused on making everyone else’s day better.”
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On Thursday, Taylor, along with some friends, delivered more than 50 thank you letters to nurses in the Security Care Unit at VCU Health. The secure ward is for inmates — not inmates, one nurse corrected, but patients — with medical needs that extend beyond what a prison or jail can provide. Some of the nurses also travel to Department of Corrections facilities, if needed.
“We don’t care what type of crimes they’ve done,” said Tonka Williams, who heads the unit. “These are our patients. We see them as patients, and we treat them as patients.”
It’s that type of compassion that motivated so many of the men to write letters, Henderson said in a phone call from prison. The project also gave them some purpose at a time when prisons are still limiting visitors and programming because of the ongoing pandemic, the Newport News man said.
Leetrell Myles, of Suffolk, said they would frequently see stories in the news about the toll the pandemic was having on the medical field, not only in mortality rates, but also in depression and stress.
“That really hit me hard that they were doing such a selfless act and they couldn’t heal themselves,” he said in a phone call.
Bryant Jones, from Norfolk, said he told the nurses in his letter “that I respect what you are doing.” His sister also works in the medical field and is sometimes too worn out to talk when he calls, he said. Being locked up for 24 years, Jones said he knows “an encouraging word means a lot.”
“I wish I could be out there helping, doing my part,” he said. “I wish there was more I could do.”
“Your act of humanity has affected them,” Taylor told the nurses he met on Thursday. The letters were a small way of paying it forward, he continued, trying to undo some of the damage they’ve done.
Taylor runs RVA League for Safer Streets, a basketball program that brings teams from rival neighborhoods to find camaraderie on the court.
In 2017, he was released from Greensville after serving 22 ½ years. Less than eight hours after his release, Taylor spoke to the men who played in the inaugural game of the league.
“I couldn’t be more proud of my son,” he said of Henderson, his first-born. “I wasn’t there for him like I should have been. I chose a life of crime and drug selling. It took me away from my son, and he ended up really reuniting with me inside.”
It was Taylor’s younger son, who is also incarcerated, who was saved by the VCU staff after his appendix ruptured.
The nurses and staff of the secure unit were overjoyed by the letters.
“This warms my heart,” said nurse Natasha Walker.
Even masks couldn’t contain their smiles.
“They’re grateful for us, but we’re equally as grateful for providing compassionate care to another human being who really deserves the extra attention they’re often denied,” said nurse Theresa DeBlasio.