SAD STORY revisited II

There are several issues raised by this poor woman's deportation, and I could write a term paper. For whatever it is worth, I will just make a few points.

- She is an illegal immigrant and the law must take its course. Like Calorius said, the law has no emotion and some times can be wicked and unjust. DNA evidence is now releasing multiples of men who have been in prison up to 20 years for rapes they did not commit. Only God know how many may have been executed for murders they did not commit.

- I agree with Calorius that it is simply a case of ko fie na ko wu. She is terminal and the multiple myeloma has not responded to treatment. Her kidneys have shut down and dialysis will keep her alive until the disease kills her. The UK Government could have quietly tempered justice with mercy and treated her for the next one or two years that her prognosis allows her but as has been hinted you can imagine the headlines in the Sun, and the Daily hateMail and the Daily hateExpress like Illegal immigrant costs Welsh Health Trust billions of pounds!.

- Gordon Brown and the Labour party are down in the polls and they have to do the "right" thing by their people. Interesting that it is usually the Conservatives (right leaning and "Christian" leaning) who will say "tough, but that is the law" while the left-leaning "godless" liberals, Lancet included, lead the charge for compassion. The true evangelicals are often silent in matters like this, just as they are largely silent about "Immigration" here. I think the best testimony would have been if a Christian Church in the UK, possibly one of the big immigrant Churches had taken up her cause and offered to pay for her dialysis.

As it is now, a good Dutch/Welsh woman, anonymous, is doing it for her in Ghana and I know more British people will donate to the cause. Do not be surprised if out of this sad story, more money is raised for the care of Kidney disease in Ghana. Funny thing, when the British people complain about something, they will always put their money where their mouth is. We have a lot to learn from that.

- The Ghana High Commissioner in London is behaving moron-like . I did not call him a moron; I said he is behaving moron-like. Why is he begging the British government to take her back? The Ambassador should have stepped in before deportation and given the assurance that the Ghana government would pay the costs of the final care. He could even have negotiated her care. If one of our honourable President Kuffuor’s ministers develops terminal pancreatic cancer with renal shutdown, they will send him at taxpayers’ expense, together with family and hangers on, to die at Cromwell Hospital in London. Our government does that all the time.

- When Eyadema of Togo fell terminally ill he got into a plane and headed for France but he died in the air before arrival. We are turning the Korle-Bu Hospital and its cash-na-hand system into an execution chamber. If we sit quietly, shrug our shoulders and just talk about it, sooner or later it affects us all.

- Finally, we have to find a way of effectively giving back and influencing our general society for the better; it is not just a matter of sending remittances of cash to relatives and friends. I hope the oil price goes up to 159 dollars a barrel; not sure how this is related to the issue being discussed though. - Robbo

Related posts:
SAD STORY revisited
A SAD SITUATION