‘My son's tears led to help for Ama’

Jan 29 2008 by David James, South Wales Echo

THE tears of an 11-year-old boy led a Cardiff couple to spend their own money paying for a Ghanaian cancer sufferer’s treatment after she was removed from the UK.

The couple, whose £3,000 donation has kept 39-year-old Ama Sumani alive, have revealed why they have taken the widowed mum-of-two’s cause to their hearts.

They told the Echo their son cried when he saw Ama on television being taken in a wheelchair from the University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, to be flown back to Africa.

“I found my 11-year-old son crying in the sitting room, because he had just watched Ama being forcibly removed from the Cardiff hospital,” said the Netherlands-born mum, who does not want to be identified.

“I looked into my son’s eyes and I saw how distraught he was and still is about all of this.

“Although I am not a Christian, I feel that this atrocity will be following this Government for ever.

“The Government creates a climate of intolerance and hate by showing disrespect to basic human rights.”

The couple, who live in Cardiff, are still trying to raise money with other friends of Ama to help her receive the treatment she needs in Ghana.

Ama, who came to Cardiff as a student five years ago, needs daily tablets as well as the regular dialysis which is only available in a few places in the African country and nowhere near her home.

When they heard of her plight, the couple wrote to the authorities offering to sacrifice their own right to NHS care if Ama could be brought back to the UK and treated here.

The mum said: “I pray that she is helped now while she is still alive.

“The tears in my son’s eyes the day he saw what happened to Ama and still sees what happens to her, keeps me going in this case.

“Just one signature from someone in this Government can change it.

“I am now afraid in the UK. I am now afraid in the Wales I came to love.”

You can help by donating through the Xquisite Africa shop on City Road, Cardiff, or signing an online petition through a website the couple have set up at www.amasumani.eu.

One Welsh doctor who signed the petition wrote: “I am ashamed that this country, which prides itself on respect for human life, should resort to the antics of tyrannical regime.”

david.james@mediawales.co.uk