A SERIOUSLY ill Nigerian woman who was deported last month may die “within a year or two” because suitable medical care is not available in her home country, according to the specialist who treated her.
Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern signed the order to deport the 30-year-old woman and her two-year-old daughter in May. They were removed from the State on July 15th despite pleas by her doctor and lawyers to be allowed to stay for treatment of her life-threatening cancer in Ireland.
Prof Michael O’Dwyer, consultant haematologist at University Hospital Galway, warned Mr Ahern’s officials in June that sending the woman back to Nigeria would be “tantamount to a death sentence” because she would not be able to access the treatment she was receiving in Ireland for leukaemia.
In a letter, he described the department’s decision to deport the woman as “truly shocking, heartless and barbaric”.
The woman was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) two years ago, which has a life expectancy of three to five years without treatment.
While new therapies have revolutionised the treatment of most leukaemia patients, her highly aggressive form of the disease proved resistant to the drug hailed as a “magic bullet” for cancer, Imatinib.
Prof O’Dwyer then put her on an expensive new treatment, Nilotinib.
This proved effective and her leukaemia went into remission. Nilotinib is available only on a limited basis in Ireland and hardly at all in the UK.
In a letter to the department, he wrote that “as an internationally recognised CML expert”, he had little doubt the woman “would not be able to access it in Nigeria where the expertise in CML management simply does not exist”.
Prof O'Dwyer told The Irish Timeslast weekend he was horrified to find out that the woman had been deported. "I would be very worried that without getting this ongoing treatment, she could be dead within a year or two."
He acknowledged that she could still challenge her deportation from Nigeria but warned that if she had to go through the regular legal system, “this could take so long her disease may already be beyond the point of no return”.
The woman came to Ireland in 2007 and lived in a hostel in Galway. Her daughter was born here. She applied for refugee status but was refused.
Documents show the department considered the medical evidence when reviewing her application for leave to remain in Ireland on humanitarian grounds.
However, officials decided there was no basis to change the Minister’s decision to deport her and rejected her lawyer’s claims that a deportation would breach the European Convention on Human Rights by constituting inhumane or degrading treatment. They also took into account that she broke immigration laws by travelling to Italy on false documents.
The department said it did not comment on individual cases. The woman is presumed to be in Nigeria but her exact whereabouts are unknown.
'Exceptional and grave' condition was cited in appeal
BACKGROUND:Nigeria's relatively poor cancer services were not deemed sufficient grounds for preventing the deportation of a young woman, writes Paul Cullen
THE NIGERIAN woman suffering from leukaemia, who was deported from Ireland last month, came here in October 2007 and applied for asylum. Her daughter was born six weeks later.
The application was refused by the Office of the Refugee Applications Commissioner and this decision was upheld by the Refugee Appeals Tribunal.
Deportation orders in respect of the woman and her daughter were signed by the Minister for Justice last May 19th and they were told they had to leave the State by June 12th.
It appears she then travelled to Italy with her daughter, where she was detained by the police in Naples and returned to Ireland.
According to the Garda National Immigration Bureau, she was carrying a false Italian travel document. The woman told gardaí her husband and two children were resident in Italy, although she had stated in her asylum application that they were in Nigeria. She was arrested on foot of the deportation order issued in May and her daughter was taken into care by the HSE.
The Refugee Legal Service made further representations on her behalf, enclosing details of her medical condition and arguing there were grave and exceptional circumstances to her case which dictated that she should not be deported.
RLS solicitor Mary Conroy argued that her “unstable and compromised” health status required additional consideration of her case. She said that 21 multiple bi-monthly specialist medical reports apprising the Minister of her situation were never considered in the assessment of her application for humanitarian leave to remain in the State.
Ms Conroy cited evidence about the lack of cancer services in Nigeria and asked the Minister not to deport the woman for long enough to allow her medical condition to be treated and stabilised. Deportation would violate Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that “no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment”, she claimed.
The case was reviewed by an official in the department’s repatriation unit, who ruled that there was nothing in the information provided that would warrant the revocation of the deportation orders in respect of the woman and her daughter.
His decision was affirmed by an assistant principal in the department who found that, having considered the additional information submitted, “it does not represent information which is substantially or materially different from that considered by the Minister when making the deportation orders”.
The handwritten note continued: “In light of this and also taking into account [the woman’s] breaching of immigration law by travelling on false documents, I recommend that the Minister affirms the deportation order in respect of [her] and her daughter”.
Further legal aid was refused, but lawyers were found who were prepared to take the case pro bono. However, before they got to court, the woman was taken from Mountjoy women’s prison and her daughter was removed from her foster placement. They were taken to a Garda station and then handed over to the Garda National Immigration Bureau and deported on July 15th.
