Epress.am News from Armenia
A female Armenian prisoner has gone on hunger strike on February 1 at the Abovyan women's prison in protest over improper treatment in jail. Servenik Gevorgyan, 54, who has been held in pre-trial custody for embezzlement charges since August, 2015, claims she is unable to move or eat on her own, while prison authorities refuse to provide her with necessary medical care.
Speaking to Epress.am, Gevorgyan's lawyer, Gayane Grigoryan, said that the inmate's health deteriorated on January 23: Gevorgyan fainted unexpectedly, and upon coming to she realized that the left side of her body was paralyzed.
“She was taken to the intensive care unit of Abovyan Medical Center, where [doctors] said Gevorgyan’s condition was too serious to keep her there. She was transferred to Grigor Lusavorich Medical Center [in Yerevan] and was told that she had to remain in hospital care for at least 2 months. However, because of unresolved financial issues between the penitentiary institution and the hospital, it was soon decided that Gevorgyan had to be discharged,” the lawyer told Epress.am.
Gevorgyan was taken back to the prison, and her health condition has been deteriorating ever since: “The prison's sole physician does not even bother to visit the patient when the latter feels unwell; they only send a nurse to inject sedatives, and that's not sufficient treatment.”
The lawyer added that in addition to the left side paralysis, Gevorgyan now has problems with her right side also: “I did not go visit her yesterday because I didn't want to torment her unnecessarily. [The prison] does not create conditions for me to be able to see her in the cell. Despite her serious health problems, they put Gevorgyan in a wheelchair and make other inmates take her down to the visiting room. Minimum sanitary standards are not even created in the cells. They've put a bucket next to Gevorgyan and told her that was her toilet.”