Andrei Klimau was refused of hospitalization

Political prisoner Andrei Klimau who is at present kept at the Minsk isolation ward has been refused of hospitalization. Andrei’s state of health leaves much to be desired, his mother Alla Petrovna reported to the press service of the Unites Civic Party. He suffers sharp headaches and heartaches .He wrote that it might happen that his health would not stand sufferings.

According to the mother, there are 4 beds for 6 people in his son’s cell. Everybody smokes in the cell but Andrei who suffers heart decease.” He writes in every letter that he suffocates of smoke”, Alla Petrovna said.

Previously they refused to accept imported medicines for him from his relatives. Head of the medical division of the isolation ward Alla Mehedova declared that they had all the necessary medicines. But Andrei Klimau was treated only with karvalol (cheap local drops) and other cheap Belarusian-made medicines, which did him no good. The relatives were very insistent on making the ward’s officials to accept the medicines and they succeeded in handing them.” The isolation ward’s officials accepted the medicines on 18 April but Andrei actually got them only 10 days later on 27 April after my cable had been sent to the ministry for health protection”, Klimau’s mother mentioned.

In her cable she also turned to minister for health protection Vasil Zharko for examining her son within the ministry for health protection system. She said that she didn’t trust the prison’s medical workers. The mother mentioned that when her son was the first time arrested in 1998 than only thanks to the UNO and Helsinki committee the family succeeded in Andrei’s hospitalization. When Klimau was brought to the hospital he fainted.

The second time during his first term in prison Klimau was hospitalized after the isolation ward’s staff had beaten him up. When Andrei was brought to the court the public prosecutor sent for the emergency. The emergency doctor insisted on the prisoner’s hospitalization but head of the medical division of the isolation ward Alla Mehedova sent him back to the jail. For ten days Klimau had not been in position to leave the cell and meet with his lawyers because of sharp pain. Only when 55 countries of the OSCE including Russia claimed urgent Klimau’s examination he was brought to the hospital where he had been undergoing medical treatment for 32 days.

“How can the head of the medical division who kept on telling the family that Andrei was in good health be trusted after that?» Klimau’s mother asked the minister for health protection.

“The appeal was answered by head of the department of arrangement of medical assistance Tatstsyana Migal on behalf of the ministry for health protection. She informed that 27 April the joint medical examination of Andrei Klimau had been conducted by the head of the medical division of the isolation ward, the head of the therapy department and by a physician and a psychiatrist. They admitted the state of health of the political prisoner to be satisfactory and denied the necessity of his hospitalization. That day Klimau was given the medicines brought by his relatives.

Alla Petrovna remarked that her son had been examined by those people whom the family does not trust. 16 May Klimau claimed hospitalization the second time directly from head of the medical division of the isolation ward Alla Mehedova.

“Andrei has been “ starved into submission”, his mother thinks. They do their best for making him to slander himself. He has been suffering real tortures”.
Andrei wrote in his letter:” First of all I suppose that they are trying to make me die”. Andrei informed his relatives that he had run out of medicines, which had been brought to him by them.
Source: www.charter97.org