Immigration chief defends deporting cancer woman

Jan 15 2008 icWales

The deportation of a woman with terminal cancer was defended by Britain’s immigration chief today.

Head of the Border and Immigration Agency, Lin Homer, told MPs that the case of Ghanaian mother-of-two Ama Sumani was heart-rending but not exceptional.

Ms Sumani, 39, suffers from malignant myeloma and was receiving dialysis at a Cardiff hospital when she was deported to Ghana last week because her UK visa had expired.

Chairman of the Commons’ all-party Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz, said he spoke with Ms Sumani by telephone from her hospital bed in Accra this afternoon, adding: “Her health has deteriorated since she arrived in Ghana.”

Ms Homer told the committee: “I think it is very difficult to see the circumstances in which this case stands out from the very many difficult cases we consider.

“These are incredibly difficult cases. There are many hundreds each year.”

She added: “We deal with many hundreds of cases where the personal circumstances reach and touch the people involved.

“It is one of the things that makes being a caseworker in the agency an incredibly difficult job.”

But the courts, right up to the European Court of Human Rights, had said that deportation can only be stopped in “very rare and extreme cases” under the article of the human rights convention which bars inhuman or degrading treatment, she added.

“The standard of medical care in this country and the access to it is sufficiently higher than in so many countries, not just Third World or developing countries,” Ms Homer said.

“If we vary from that point there are many, many tens of thousands who would be able to argue that.

“We see many cases where the medical prognosis for an individual would be far less good in the home country.”

Committee member Gwyn Prosser said: “Many people would believe that this case is exceptional. If it’s not exceptional, good God, what is?”

Ms Homer confirmed that Ms Sumani’s case had been dealt with by officials and not considered by Home Office ministers.

Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan contrasted the "terribly sad event" endured by Ms Sumani with the case of footballer Al Bangura, who was threatened with deportation back to Sierra Leone.

The Watford midfielder, who faced having to return to his African homeland after he was refused asylum, was yesterday granted a work permit.

Speaking in the Assembly chamber, Mr Morgan said: "It does make you think, ’Well, if that’s OK for a footballer to have this treatment, shouldn’t that apply to this person in need of dialysis from Ghana?’.

"Perhaps the Home Office will want to look at that comparison itself and perhaps draw a different conclusion."

He was responding to Plaid Cymru AM Leanne Wood, who asked him to guarantee Ms Sumani would be treated on the NHS if she came back to Wales.

Janet Simmons, a friend of Ms Sumani in Cardiff, said she was "very disappointed" by Ms Homer’s comments.

She said: "Although I can see where she’s coming from and it’s a difficult decision to make, this is something on our doorstep. The woman is dying, she is on her death bed.

"Before she was taken away they should have made sure she was in a position to afford the medication in Ghana.

"She’s got a right to live like all of us."

Mrs Simmons, who is currently trying to raise enough funds for her friend to undergo dialysis in Ghana, said that when she spoke to Ms Sumani last night she was in a lot of pain.

"We need to raise £2,400 to buy three months of treatment," she said.

"She needs that straight away, while the politicians are making their decisions. If she doesn’t get help this week, things are just going to get worse for her."

Mrs Simmons, who is running the appeal fund from her Xquisite Africa craft shop in Cardiff, said that while she had received many offers of cash for Ms Sumani’s dialysis, very little money had so far come in.

"I have received £100 from a pensioner who couldn’t afford very much, but that is all. I have had lots of promises though."