Right to healthcare and asylum seekers

There is little doubt that a healthcare system that is funded by taxes and has adequate checks and balances is the most equitable and just. Britain’s healthcare system operating under the NHS is fundamentally based on such a philosophy.

Thus, when someone is denied care in Britain, for whatever reason, it comes as a great shock. The terrible case of 39 year old Ama Sumani who came to Britain in 2001, hoping to be a student, and was diagnosed five years later with multiple myeloma, only to be deported to her native Ghana where she languishes without care has caused outrage among the thinking British public.

The Lancet has scathingly called it an act of “atrocious barbarism” and called upon the medical community to assert its deep distress at what has been done to the ailing woman. That editorial is here. Clearly, without the dialysis facility that she had access to in the UK, and further medical attention, Sumani’s chances of making any kind of progress are seriously in jeopardy.

A point to note is the response of many members of the British public with offers of monetary help and even bone marrow donations.

The case of Ama Sumani provides an opportunity to question some of our own trends: no access to life-saving treatment for many poor patients including those with renal failure; attempts by State governments to restrict access to domiciled patients, shunning those coming from geographically contiguous areas in neighbouring States (example, Government General Hospital in Chennai demanding ration cards to filter out those coming from Andhra districts nearby) and the larger trend of transferring healthcare to the for-profit sector both directly (through various forms of insurance) and indirectly by failing to expand state-run tertiary care.

Tags: Ama Sumani, Chennai, Ghana, Hospitals, Lancet, Multiple Myeloma, Myeloma, National Health Service, NHS, The Lancet, United Kingdom