Act of Cruelity: UK deports dying woman
BBC (London) - A terminally ill Ghanaian woman has been deported back to her home country despite her condition and outcry from the British public.
The Ghanaian woman, Ama Sumani, dying from cancer, was escorted back to Ghana by UK immigration official from Cardiff even though she cannot afford kidney dialysis treatment to prolong her life. Mrs. Sumani, a 39-year-old widow and mother-of-two, had been receiving dialysis at the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff for more than a year after cancer damaged her kidneys.
Defending the cruel action, the head of the UK Border and Immigration Agency, Ms. Lin Homer, told the Home Affairs Select Committee that Ms. Sumani’s situation was not totally different from other immigration situations that her gency had tackled in the past. In her words, “I think it is difficult to see the circumstances in which this case stands out from the many very difficult cases we consider.”
During questioning by MPs, Ms Homer said the decision was backed up by previous rulings in the domestic courts, the House of Lords and the European Court in Strasbourg.
A very influential medical journal, the Lancet medical journal, had called the decision of the home office “atrocious barbarism”
While it is true that the UK and other developed countries face challenging immigration problems, difficult life-threatening situations like that of Ms. Sumani, should receive special attention. How can the UK lay claim to helping developing countries and the less privileged, if a helpless woman is allowed to die because of bureaucratic legalities.
Reacting to the news of Ms. Sumani’s deportation, the Commons home affairs committee chairman Keith Vaz described the deportation decision as “astonishing”.
Mr Vaz noted that there is the issue of ministerial discretion in compassionate cases. According to him, “the decision to remove some people and not others is becoming arbitrary and unfair…they just seem to be acting tough on the wrong cases”.
News source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7189137.stm
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