Tag: prison infirmary

I observe the following: Mule Creek State Prison (MCSP) is run by an organized gang of white supremacist custodial, medical and psychiatric staff and their unconscionable non-white accomplices. I shall only cite the following examples of the willful denial of medical treatment by MCSP medical staff, as they shall allow me to die if my life depends on their saving it. I am severely ill due to the long term denial of genuine medical treatment.

Black Panther Party political prisoner Herman Bell was viciously assaulted by guards at Great Meadow Correctional Facility (Comstock) in New York on Sept. 5, 2017. While being “escorted” by a guard back to his housing unit, Herman, age 69, was struck in the face by a guard, causing his glasses to drop to the floor. The guard pushed Herman against the wall, Herman stumbled and fell to the ground. The guard then continued viciously hitting and kicking Herman.

Protest Big Pharma’s price gouging that threatens Hep-C patients, including Mumia, on Monday, Jan. 11, 12 noon, at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference for Big Pharma executives and investors at Westin St. Francis Hotel, 335 Powell St., Union Square, in San Francisco. Gilead Sciences sells the curative Harvoni pill in Egypt for 10 cents each, and Gilead does not lose money at this price. In the U.S., Gilead is price-gouging at about 10,000 times the cost of production!

Major George Tillery is a Pennsylvania lifer, 65, who confronted SCI Mahanoy Superintendent John Kerestes over Mumia Abu-Jamal’s deteriorating health. Prison authorities retaliated against Major Tillery – repeatedly ransacked his cell and denied him medical treatment for seeking medical assistance for Mumia and other prisoners. Tillery was transferred to SCI Frackville and then falsely charged with drug possession, disciplined and given six months in “the hole.”

Mumia’s attorneys have filed a lawsuit charging the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections with medical neglect. On Sept. 5, prison staff boxed up all Mumia’s personal effects from his cell while he was in the prison infirmary trying to recover from the prison’s medical malfeasance and neglect that nearly killed him. A retaliatory transfer to some other prison would be a new blow against Mumia’s health, and would steep him and his family in greater fear and uncertainty.

I visited Mumia this past Saturday, June 13. Mumia was in good spirits. We talked about the happenings of the world, and he shared a lot about his stay at Geisinger Medical Center. It is clear that the hospital contained the spread of skin lesions that were out of control, and in so doing contained the worst symptoms of a serious skin disease. But the skin disease itself remains active all over his body and undiagnosed.

The majority of U.S. prisoners are African American and Latino males in their childbearing years, imprisoned in a system that regularly violates their fundamental human rights and ravages their health. Mumia would want us to use his suffering to demonstrate that those relegated to the lowest strata of our society – imprisoned Black, Brown and poor – suffer not only their sentences but illness and death by neglect.

Internationally renowned political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is seriously ill. We call on Governor Wolf and Secretary Wetzel to promptly authorize the independent doctors Mr. Abu-Jamal has chosen to coordinate his diagnosis and treatment plan, and to involve the specialists needed to address his many medical challenges. Given the extensive evidence of Mr. Abu-Jamal’s innocence and that his very life is in danger while in the prison system, we call for his immediate release from prison.

“My father is in pain,” Mumia Abu-Jamal’s son Jamal Hart related to his uncle and Mumia’s oldest brother, Keith Cook, after a brief 10-minute visit with Mumia Wednesday at the Schuylkill Medical Center. “He was having trouble breathing and wasn’t doing as well as he was yesterday.” Nevertheless, Mumia was transferred back to the infirmary at SCI Mahanoy – the same prison infirmary that failed to identify his diabetes, gravely misdiagnosed him and gave him severely detrimental treatment. Readers are urged to call and contribute.

On Saturday, Jan. 10, 2015, Phil Africa, revolutionary, John Africa’s first minister of defense and beloved brother, husband and father, passed away under suspicious circumstances at the State Correctional Institution at Dallas, Penn. Phil will never be forgotten and this is not the end. He is dearly missed, but his strong example should inspire everyone to fight harder for the freedom of the MOVE 9 and all political prisoners.

When the concept of Black August manifested in 1979, many thought it was simply a focus group protest growing out of the avoidable death of Khatari Gaulden on Aug. 1, 1978, in the San Quentin prison infirmary. Survival for Africans in California’s prison population of 20,000 inmates had to that point been recognized by some as a bit more than problematic.