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Report: Mumia Abu-Jamal May Be In a Coma in Penn. Hospital From Diabetes-Related Illness

Mumia_raised_fist_020612_webFamed writer and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal may be in a coma after being rushed from his prison cell to a Pennsylvania hospital on Monday to be treated for complications related to diabetes.

Abu-Jamal’s longtime friend Johanna Fernández told Democracy Now! that she only learned he had been transferred when she went to visit him Monday morning at the state prison in Frackville. She said she was worried because he sounded sick when the two spoke by phone last week.

“Upon arrival I was told I could not see him,” Fernández told Democracy Now! “We were told he was in diabetic shock and taken to the hospital.”

She said he had been complaining to her for the past three months that he had had “extreme eczema outbreak” and his skin was “akin to that of an elephant’s.”

“He tried to access whatever healthcare was available to him and it was woefully inadequate,” said Noelle Hanrahan, producer of Prison Radio.

“Taking prisoners to outside hospitals is not standard operating procedure,” Hanrahan said. “You have to be extraordinarily sick.”

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