A Ghanaian woman who was removed from a Cardiff hospital where she was receiving cancer treatment and flown home after her visa expired has died.
Ama Sumani, 39, passed away in Accra, Ghana, hours after being told that friends and family had found doctors in the UK and South Africa to treat her. They had also raised more than £70,000 from donations to pay for drugs which were not available in her home country. Her friend Janet Symmons said: “She said she was too tired to fight.
Ms Sumani, a widowed mother-of-two, died at about 1600 GMT on Wednesday in Korle-Bu hospital in Accra, said Mrs Simmons. She had been receiving kidney dialysis and treatment there after immigration officials removed Ms Sumani from the University Hospital of Wales in January. But the drug she needed to prolong her life – thalidomide – is not available in Ghana
Mrs Symmons, from Cardiff, who returned from spending a month in Ghana on Sunday, said they had just found a doctor in South Africa and another in the UK who would treat terminally-ill Ms Sumani with the drugs. “We told her this morning but this afternoon she gave up,” she said.
A campaign to allow Ms Sumani to return to the UK for treatment and to raise funds to help her had been backed by people across the country. “The British people kept her alive all this time and we would like to thank them for their donations,” said Mrs Symmons. She added: “I last saw her on Saturday morning before I left Ghana. She was not 100%. She asked me ‘are you taking me with you?’ and I had to say no.”
The BBC’s Will Ross in Accra said Ms Sumani’s life had been precarious, and that the decision to send her home was controversial. Despite facing great challenges in Ghana as her health deteriorated, she remained cheerful and hoped the British government would reverse its decision, he added.
Anonymous donor
Ms Sumani had been undergoing dialysis and was receiving other drugs at the University Hospital of Wales after being diagnosed with malignant myeloma which damaged her kidneys.
She came to the UK five years ago to become a student but began working in contravention of her visa regulations. When she returned to Ghana it was feared she would not be able to pay the costs of dialysis, and an anonymous donor from the UK stepped in to pay for three months of treatment.
Previously, Mrs Symmons had said a family had offered to look after Ms Sumani’s children Mary, 16, and seven-year-old Samede. The decision to remove Ms Sumani was described as “atrocious barbarism” by leading medical journal The Lancet.
The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams also criticised the way cases like hers were handled.
Source: BBC News
PJ
2 years ago
Well what a sad state of events, it seems like if this lady was to get the treatment in this country there might have been progression in live, whose knows! More time with the family and such.
But because of an impending immigration problem this didn’t materialise, sending her back when severely ill for one and secondly knowing sky-high prices of medical care in the country and the unavailability of the drug!
Surely this case could have been dealt with on compassionate grounds, when she has recovered then deal with immigration predicament! Apparently there are numerous cases like this, put the whole bureaucracy issue on the back foot and the human first surely!
AA
2 years ago
The statistically driven world is getting to that stage, where patients register thier illnesses in hospitals, just to be acknowledged and not neccesarily diagnosed.
I heard from a doctor that most hospital workers, including some of the highly trained nurses are just box tickers and they don’t see people who need help, they see forms that need to be filed.
SAD! But it’s the only thing the government are offering us – Who said we live in a Democratic State?
No Borders Wales
2 years ago
The deportation of Ama Sumani (described by Lin Homer, chief executive of the Border & Immigration Agency, as “not exceptional”) not only shows a total lack of compassion, it suggests a vindictive cruelty in the methodology of the Border & Immigration Agency.
By denying her the drugs she needed & the support people were willing to give, the Border & Immigration Agency are guilty of no less than culpable homicide.
It is horrific that someone receiving treatment vital to their survival can be removed from hospital against their will. What is chilling is that this is the operational practice of a government funded executive agency.