Release on medical parole means that Gao Yu can be returned to prison to serve the remainder of her sentence if she is considered to be well enough. Her sentence expires in October 1999. Post-release reports about Gao Yu's health indicate that she has heart disease and skin ulcers. Many prisoners in China suffer general ill-health from stress and result of being held in extremely poor conditions of detention.
Food is often inadequate and of low quality and prison sanitation is poor.
In January 1999, the former journalist was transferred from the Beijing prison where she had been held to a juvenile correction centre near her home. According to reports quoting her family, the terms of her parole ban Gao Yu from speaking to the media. She is not allowed to leave Beijing for more than three days or without the permission of the authorities. Reports from her husband and son say that Gao Yu is now seeking medical treatment but might try to go to Columbia University in New York later this year to study and teach there as she had planned to do before her arrest. At trials in May and July 1994 the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence to support the charges brought against her.