Tymoshenko Needs Treatment Outside Jail

Jailed former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko is in urgent need of specialized medical services that are unavailable at the penal colony where she is being held, her lawyer said on Tuesday. The prison administration maintains the opposite, that the prison hospital can meet all the recommendations made by a medical commission that recently examined Tymoshenko. But her lawyer Serhiy Vlasenko took issue with that, arguing that the recommendations explicitly were that Tymoshenko should go to a specialized clinic for an extended course of treatment, which should start immediately. According to the German medical specialists who examined the former prime minister, “Mrs. Tymoshenko is unfit for work,” he said. He earlier said Health Ministry officials were aware of Tymoshenko’s true state of health, but the ministry proposed “physical exercise as treatment and even forbade crutches.” Tymoshenko’s supporters claim her health has deteriorated since her pre-trial detention began in August 2011 and that she is no longer able to walk due to back problems. Tymoshenko is currently battling fresh charges of financial wrongdoing during her tenure as head of United Energy Systems of Ukraine in the 1990s.