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Berks Detention Center: Detainees Say Asylum Seeker Denied Adequate Healthcare

HeadlineSep 26, 2016

And in news from the Berks Family Detention Center in Pennsylvania, a woman from El Salvador who has been detained for 400 days reportedly fainted last week after she suffered headaches, dizziness and vomiting. She was taken to a hospital Thursday to undergo gall bladder surgery, only to be returned to detention on Friday. Her fellow Berks detainees issued a statement Saturday that the woman had no nurse to tend to her in her room and was relying on her two teenage daughters who are detained with her. They say the woman’s prescribed medical diet has yet to be approved and that she wasn’t allowed a visit with her sister because she was in too much pain to walk down stairs to the visiting room. Women at Berks have called for the mother to be “immediately let go so that she can be taken care of by actual trained and professional staff.” Officials have so far refused to release the mother and the two girls while their asylum claim is being appealed in federal court.

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