Activists concerned not just with Mumia’s health, but also with the prison conditions impacting thousands of aging incarcerated people, issued a Call to Action beginning Feb. 15.
Calls on behalf of Mumia should be made to the following prison officials, weekdays between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET: Superintendent at SCI Mahanoy Bernadette Mason, 570-773-2158; and Secretary of Corrections at PA DOC, Dr. Laurel R. Harry, 717-728-4109; and Deputy Secretary Central Region, Robert Gimble 717-728-4122, ext. 4123.
A suggested sample script is: “Mumia Abu-Jamal (aka Wesley Cook) #AM 8335, had double bypass heart surgery in 2021 and has had other serious health issues, including COVID 19 and hepatitis C. We are therefore demanding that Mumia be provided with regular daily exercise, clean water, a cardiac-healthy diet and preventive care and screening.”
The Call to Action concludes with this statement by the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics: “There are legal, ethical, social and public health reasons why prisoners, as wards of the state, must be supplied with health care. The legal reasons for providing health care to prisoners were stipulated in the 1976 Supreme Court Estelle v. Gamble decision, in which the Court held that deprivation of health care constituted cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.”