Families of Palestine Action hunger strikers in hospital 'blocked' from contacting them
Shahmina Alam spends her days glued to her phone.
Along with her parents, she’s waiting for news of her brother Kamran Ahmed, a Palestine Action-linked prisoner hospitalised for a second time on Monday due to his hunger strike.
“The fact that I don’t have my phone right next to me in this interview is making me feel anxious,” Alam told Middle East Eye.
“We don’t know how he’s doing, that’s the honest answer,” she said of her brother, who is being held at Pentonville prison in London.
The prison, she said, has blocked the hospital from directly providing medical updates to her brother's family and solicitor, instructing them to go through the hospital’s legal team instead.
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The family experienced a similar communications blackout when Ahmed was first hospitalised on 25 November, despite multiple calls and emails from Alam and her husband requesting information.
“Like last time, we’ve been cut from communication with him and we’re unable to get updates,” she said.
The silence is unbearable for the sister and her elderly parents, who are now wholly dependent on her for support in her brother’s absence.
“Every day you’re on edge. Every hour, every minute. I don't sleep. I stay awake. I’m anxious,” Alam told MEE.
An MOJ spokesperson said in response to a request for comment that : “His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) have assured Ministers that all cases of prisoner food refusal are being managed in accordance with the relevant policy, and with appropriate medical assessment and support, consistent with prisoner rights".
NHS England did not comment by the time of publication.
Hunger strikes
Kamran Ahmed joined a rolling hunger strike on 2 November launched by Palestine Action-affiliated prisoners over their detention conditions and the proscription of the direct action group. Some of them have not eaten for over 40 days.
The campaign group supporting the strikers, Prisoners for Palestine (PFP), reported that Ahmed’s ketone levels - which indicate blood acidity - were dangerously high before his hospitalisation.
Alam told MEE that ECG (electrocardiogram) tests before his hospitalisation revealed that Ahmed’s pulse was slowing.
“This is dangerous, and can lead to things like coma or sudden cardiac arrest,” she told MEE.
Alam said the prison had also conducted blood tests prior to his hospitalisation, but they have yet to provide the results.
“So he’s unaware, and obviously if he’s not aware, then we don’t know either,” Alam said.
Obstructing treatment
Five of the hunger strikers have been hospitalised so far. In all these cases, PFP reported, the prisoners’ next of kin were not notified.
Ella Moulsdale, who is listed as next of kin for Qesser Zuhrah, a hunger striker held at HMP Bronzefield, said that she had called the prison requesting a welfare check on her cell before her hospitalisation on 3 December.
But then, she heard nothing. “I waited maybe 20 more minutes after they said they would send someone,” Moulsdale said. “I knew once she didn’t call me that there was no way she was in her cell.
“The hospital refused her a call to me and her lawyer.”
Moulsdale said that the hospital removed her as Zuhrah’s next of kin, instead listing HMP Bronzefield as the emergency contact.
James Smith, an emergency doctor who has been providing advice and support to the hunger strikers and their families, said that the lack of communication by prisons during the strikers’ hospitalisation flies in the face of standard protocol.
“If a prisoner is admitted to hospital and there is a concern that they may be severely unwell or that they have suffered a severe injury, then the prison service should update the next of kin that they have been admitted to hospital and update them with respect to their clinical state. And that’s very well established in accepted guidance,” Smith told MEE.
The doctor also reported that prison guards accompanying the prisoners to hospital have “obstructed” their treatment.
He said he was aware of at least one case in which a striker was chained to the bed or a prison guard for the duration of their stay in hospital.
“This included when they were showering, when NHS staff were trying to do medical assessments and take medical histories,” Smith said.
‘A very high risk of death’
Smith said the medical treatment the strikers are receiving falls “far below the minimum standard”.
“When a prisoner announces that they’re going on hunger strike, there are a series of actions that need to be taken,” he said. “The bare minimum of which is regular daily monitoring.”
He explained that this should include daily checks on blood sugar and ketone levels, as well as their weight.
“There doesn’t appear to have been a single day where a full set of clinical signs have been shared with me by the next of kin,” the doctor told MEE.
“We have certainly heard of several instances where the nurse has not checked the weight, or a blood ketone level hasn’t been taken on a particular day.”
He explained that, particularly in the later stages of a hunger strike, “a day where you’ve not taken an essential blood test or done an essential set of observations, can be the difference between picking up on something early, or leaving it until it’s too late”.
Smith emphasised that the situation now is critical, with many of the prisoners approaching the 40th day of their food refusal.
“This is the phase in which the body is effectively starting to break down muscles and essential organs. And there's a very, very high risk of death,” he told MEE.
“This could either be due to infection as the body becomes unable to fight it off, or due to the imbalance of essential salts in the bloodstream, which cause the heart to start to behave in an irregular fashion.”
“The heart can ultimately just stop beating,” he said, emphasising that “this could happen at any time”.
“It cannot be understated how serious this situation is now”.
Multiple MPs have written to Justice Secretary David Lammy requesting urgent intervention. Lammy, who previously denied knowledge of the situation, either failed to respond or refused to meet with MPs.
On Friday, MP Zarah Sultana wrote to Lammy again, urging him to take “meaningful action” and warning that the strikers' lives are “now at immediate risk”.
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