Family and supporters of Anne Henderson Pollard claim she was wrested abruptly from medical treatment in a Connecticut hospital Saturday and returned without warning to a prison facility in Rochester, Minn.
The family says Pollard was taken from her bed at Danbury General Hospital and that intravenous tubes were disconnected by prison guards in order to remove her from the bed.
Pollard’s father said she collapsed in the Danbury prison ladies’ room.
Pollard, whose family says she suffers from a rare digestive disorder, is serving two concurrent five-year prison terms for being an accessory to her husband, Jonathan Pollard, a former civilian Navy defense analyst sentenced to life imprisonment for spying for Israel.
No eyewitnesses were available to verify Anne Pollard’s removal from the hospital. The hospital and a physician that Pollard’s family says treated her favorably were enjoined from talking to the news media and referred all calls to the Danbury prison.
A Danbury prison spokesman said the transfer was made to enable Pollard to have correct medical treatment.
Other government officials were not available for comment on Monday, the Martin Luther King Day holiday.
DEHYDRATED AND MALNOURISHED
Pollard had been transferred to Danbury General Wednesday from Danbury Prison Camp, a minimum security prison. Her family said a prison doctor diagnosed her as being dehydrated and malnourished.
Pollard’s prison assignments have been somewhat circuitous. She was transferred to the Danbury prison on Sept. 1 from the Federal Correctional Institution in Rochester, Minn., a hospital prison close by the Mayo Clinic. She is presently the only female inmate there.
She was sent there because of the family’s insistence that her medical condition was deteriorating. Prior to the Rochester prison facility, Pollard was in federal prison in Lexington, Ky.
Bernard Henderson, Pollard’s father, claimed his daughter’s health had deteriorated dramatically at the Rochester prison and said medical testing was not adequate.
The executive assistant for the Rochester prison warden, John Chreno, could only confirm Pollard was transferred there Saturday and said “she is receiving adequate medical care and treatment, as she always has.”
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