The medical treatment at the Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention centre is ineffective and Margarita Charykova needs to be hospitalised. This is the conclusion of Leonid Petrov, a doctor with 25 years' experience, forensic medical expert of the highest category, PhD and Associate Professor of Forensic Medicine and Jurisprudence at St. Petersburg State Medical University. He prepared his expert advisory opinion on the basis of the documents presented. 

This news was reported by the Agora Human Rights Association, quoting lawyer Svetlana Sidorkina, who, at the request of Agora, is representing the interests of Margarita Charykova.

Meanwhile, on Sunday the young woman was discharged from the hospital at the Matrosskaya Tishina Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 1 and transferred back to the Pechatniki Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 6.

"The presence of ulcers on the lining of the colon creates the risk of the development of life-threatening complications - intestinal bleeding, perforation of ulcers together with the onset of peritonitis," said forensic medical expert Leonid Petrov. "The presence of nausea, vomiting, and oedema together with weight gain signal an increase in Margarita Charykova of the symptoms of intestinal obstruction and poisoning. The persistence of the symptoms of intestinal obstruction, the manifestation of ulcerative colitis and signs of chronic inflammation indicate that the treatment performed in Detention Centre No. 1 has failed."

The doctor finishes with the conclusion: "For an examination and subsequent treatment which fully conform to the relevant standards, Margarita Charykova needs to be hospitalised in a clinic which provides coloproctology medical care."

The day before, Svetlana Sidorkina had visited Margarita Charykova at Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 6. The lawyer said that the young woman's temperature was stable and she was still suffering from nausea, vomiting and a purulent discharge.

"Her weight has gone up from 47 to 60 kilos, that's an increase of 13 kilograms," Sidorkina said. Yesterday a doctor at the detention facility examined her, threw his hands in the air and admitted that things looked bleak for the young woman, but said that they did not have the specialists or equipment. She told me what the doctors at the detention centre had said to her: "We don't know how to alleviate your suffering."

An urgent appeal had earlier been sent to the European Court of Human Rights, asking for the immediate release from detention of Margarita Charykova, 24, due to the threat to her health and life. The disabled woman, who was born missing a vital part of the digestive system (the straight intestine), is being held in the pre-trial detention centre and, according to her mother, is literally "rotting alive." Lawyer Sidorkina has asked the European Court of Human Rights to release Charykova immediately and force Russia to conduct a medical examination to establish that she has a serious illness that means she should not be kept in detention.

The young woman's mother Erika Kaminskaya told the Agora Association that her daughter was arrested on 11 December 2012 in Moscow by staff from the Federal Service for Drug Control, who confiscated the drug Piracetam mixed with a homemade psychotropic amphetamine stimulant. She said that after numerous operations Margarita used the medicine independently as a painkiller, since she had suffered from terrible pain since birth.

On 12 December 2012 Margarita Charykova was charged with "preparing to sell narcotic drugs, psychotropic or similar substances" (Article 30, Section 1 & Article 228, Section 1, para 'G', of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). On 15 December, at the request of the investigators, the court ordered that she be remanded in custody and on the same day she was taken to the Pechatniki pre-trial detention centre.

"During her time in the detention centre her health has deteriorated sharply, she has not been given the medical assistance she needs, not even the most basic hygiene procedures have been carried out and she has not been allowed to follow a special diet," Erika Kaminskaya wrote to the human rights defenders. "As she hasn't received the necessary medical care, her artificial anus is leaking from bleeding of the sigmoid colon (since she was born without a rectum), and with her digestive system blocked, clear signs of poisoning and severe edema of her entire body, she was admitted to the hospital at the Matrosskaya Tishina Pre-Trial Detention Centre No. 1 in a condition close to critical.