In day 11 of the Dyett High School hunger strike, health professionals warned that the situation was dangerous and urged the mayor to accept the strikers’ petition.

“”This is truly an emergency,” said Dr. Linda Rae Murray, chief medical officer for the Cook County Department of Public Health, as she delivered a letter Thursday signed by 17 local doctors and nurses to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office on the fifth floor of City Hall.

“We consider the current situation to be a deepening health emergency in our city,” the letter states. “It is one you can abate by reaching out to the strikers, entertaining their grievances and accepting their proposal.”

“We’re here as medical professionals to inform the public to call on the mayor to take action immediately,” Murray added….”

“This has become a really serious issue,” Raether said. “We believe the mayor needs to respond to a health emergency.”

Yet Emanuel hinted Thursday the entire Dyett reopening may be in doubt.

“While saying that his newly appointed Board of Education President Frank Clark and CPS Chief Executive Officer Forrest Claypool are “going to work through a number of issues as it relates to the Dyett High School, its future and its part of the community,” he immediately pointed out there are 10 high schools within a three-mile radius of Dyett.

“Within about a mile of the school is King College Prep,” Emanuel added during an impromptu news conference Thursday morning. “So there’s a lot of high schools in that area. How do you talk about another one when even some of the high schools within the three-mile radius are not at capacity yet?”