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Deported Ghanaian
dies of cancer
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.
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. |