(Minghui.org) An Anguo City, Hebei Province resident suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while in detention for her faith in Falun Gong. After spending two weeks at the intensive care unit following a craniotomy, Ms. Ma Huixin was forcibly taken out of the hospital and sent to a senior living center without her family’s consent.
The judge in charge of her case hastily sentenced her to six months of house arrest before her operation. The Baoding City Detention Center is now denying any responsibility for her condition and also demanding that her husband reimburse them for her medical cost.
Ms. Ma was arrested on June 13, 2020, for distributing information about her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. She was put on criminal detention the next day and sent to the Baoding City Detention Center.
On November 7, two days after the Gaoyang Procuratorate indicted her, she was sent to Baoding City First Hospital and resuscitated. The Gaoyang Court sentenced her to six months of house arrest on November 8 and ordered her family to take her home.
Ms. Ma had a craniotomy on November 10 and was transferred to the regular ward on November 22, after staying in the intensive care unit for 15 days.
Also on November 10, her husband, Mr. Li Feng, went to the Gaoyang Court and left a letter to judge Chen Hongqiang to request the acquittal of Ms. Ma. He mailed the same letter to judge Chen and prosecutor Wang Dongfang a few days later.
Before Mr. Li had received any response from the judge and prosecutor, a dozen officers from the Baoding City Detention Center and Domestic Security Office went to the hospital on November 30 to get Ms. Ma discharged.
It happened that Mr. Li went to visit her when the officers came. He asked who sent them there, but they didn’t provide a direct answer.
Mr. Li asked a detention center guard, “She just had such a big operation. Can you be responsible for her if you take her away?” The guard, who refused to reveal his name, replied, “I won’t be responsible for it, but I can report it to my supervisor.”
Mr. Li then talked to his wife's attending physician, a doctor surnamed Xie. He said he was concerned that his wife was unable to sleep well and often talked nonsense. The doctor said her operation was done on the front right side of her brain, which is in charge of her memory. He suggested that Mr. Li take her to a rehabilitation center and do hyperbaric oxygen therapy for her. The doctor also said that for patients like her, they are prone to have hydrocephalus (fluids accumulation in the brain) in the future, but most people would completely recover in three years.
Mr. Li asked for Ms. Ma to stay in the hospital for a few more days and he would take her home after her condition became stabilized. The doctor referred him to the detention center staff and said, “You can discuss that among yourselves.”
Wu Shuai, an officer from the Domestic Security Division, pulled Mr. Li aside and said to him, “You can take her to the Anguo Rehabilitation Center. Are you trying to get some money from the detention center?”
Mr. Li replied that he didn’t care about money, and what he cared about is his wife’s life.
Wu then said to him, “You can make the call whether to go to the rehabilitation center in Anguo or Baoding. The detention center will cover the cost. But the only condition is that she leaves the hospital today.”
No matter how the officer tried to persuade Mr. Li, he didn’t agree to let Ms. Ma be discharged on that day.
When it was about 12 p.m., Liu Xiang from the Baoding City Detention Center came to talk to Mr. Li. He claimed that it was the hospital who informed them to take Ms. Ma away. He said that since Ms. Ma has already been sentenced on November 8, they were no longer bearing any responsibility for her.
“I know she was sick, and that’s why we sent her to the hospital to treat her. But I’ll ask for you to reimburse the medical cost we had paid for her,” he said.
Liu also referred to a responsibility waiver Ms. Ma was forced to sign when she was in a subconscious state. When her children visited her at the hospital on November 8, the detention center guards monitoring her there also attempted to force them to sign the responsibility waiver. After they refused to sign it, Liu blamed them for not being respectful.
A few hours after Mr. Li returned home, he received a call from Chen Xing, the director of the Anguo Domestic Security Division, who attempted to persuade him again to take Ms. Ma home that day. Mr. Li explained that her condition wasn’t stable yet and he had to ask for the doctor’s opinion.
When Mr. Li called the hospital half an hour later, the doctor said Ms. Ma had already been taken away, but without specifying who did it. Her family called the village officials who accompanied the police and detention center guards to the hospital during the day, but the village officials denied they had any knowledge about her.
After a sleepless night, Mr. Li called the police around 6 a.m and was given two phone numbers. When he called, one number was never answered, and the person who answered the call with the second number said they were the Baoding Domestic Security Division and weren’t in charge of Ms. Ma’s case.
Extremely worried about his wife, Mr. Li rushed to the Anguo Domestic Security Division around 8: 30 a.m. to look for director Chen. While Chen didn’t meet with him, one officer told him that Ms. Ma had been sent to a senior center in Anguo.
Related reports:
Hebei Woman Suffers Stroke in Custody and Remains Hospitalized After Two Weeks in ICU
Hebei Woman in Critical Condition After Suffering a Stroke in Custody
Two Hebei Residents Still in Detention Months after Their Arrests
