An appeal fund to help a terminally-ill Ghanaian woman who was removed from the UK because her visa expired, has been set up by her friends in Cardiff.
Ama Sumani’s friend Janet Simmons said pledges of money had been “flooding in” to the appeal, which is being run out of an African craft store in the city.
You can contact the fund through
Xquisite Africa
148 City Road
Cardiff, CF24 3DR
02920498400
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Marilyn Jones 01.15.08 at 9:18 pm
I have tried to phone the appeal number above for the Ama Sumani appeal but it does not receive incoming calls!
Also the 0044 is the code for phoning from outside UK and for inside UK the number should have a 0 in front of it.
The appeal is for urgently needed money and it’s a pity it is so hard to give it.
jeremy Dann 01.17.08 at 3:52 pm
Can we make cheques out to Ama Sumani appeal fund or Xquisite Africa?
Richard 01.17.08 at 6:50 pm
I spoke to Janet Simmons at Xquisite Africa just now. Ms Sumani has a British bank account, so cheques can simply be made out to her and sent to Xquisite Africa. They will pay them into her account, and the BBC reporter in Ghana is helping her to access it.
Michelle 01.18.08 at 11:37 am
Fantastic! I just called Xquisite Africa a moment ago and confirmed that it really does exist and that I’m to send checks to Ama Sumani. I’m now putting all of this information on my blog.
David 01.20.08 at 8:38 pm
I am absolutely disgusted that this woman was flown out of the UK back to Ghana. Could we not have put her on a boat instead? I understand that this would have been a much cheaper option for the British Tax Payer. I’m just hoping that in an attempt to offset the poor taxpayers expenses, they had a good rumage through her purse first, just in case she could have made a contribution, in fact there might have been enough to get a round in for the Immigration Officers by way of a small thankyou for helping her with her luggage!!
Royston Williams 02.08.08 at 12:26 pm
The case of Ama Sumani has touched a lot of people in Wales and the rest of the United Kingdom. A great wrong has been done and should be put right. A true act of compassion would be for the Government to fly this lady back to Wales where she can resume her treatment a UHW. Even if you just click on the sign petition link on this blog you will supporting this woman who has acted with dignity throughout. Not so the British Government who have acted disgracefully. Royston
David 02.12.08 at 9:54 pm
Royston, get over it! Its Westminster that has to pay for it from the hard earned taxes of the majority population of the ‘UK’… that would be the English. You want her treatment paid for, you stump up the cash, or get the Welsh taxpayers to do it.
Hell, have you not be reading this stuff Royston? The Ghanaian Goverment don’t want to pay for her, the Hospital in Accra said she couldn’t have treatment cos she couldn’t pay for it!! Why oh why then Royston, should I have to pay for it? it is the ‘National’ Health Service, not the ‘World Health Service’….. the clue is in the name!
DH 02.24.08 at 6:05 pm
Royston may get over it, but I won’t. My country is better than this mean nasty treatment of a poor woman who needed our help. David, when I read your comment re ’send her by boat’ I thought it was some sort of sick joke. And then I read your next comment and, oh dear, you really do not understand the principles that lay behind the setting up of the National Health Service. Treatment was to be free to all in the UK at the point of need. This was based on the principle that we are civilised country who pool our resources to help each other. In other words we worked together collectively, not as a bunch of individuals buying essential goods and services if we happen to have the where with all. There was no nationality or residence test. This changed about forty years ago when a labour government introduced charges for those who used hospital services shortly after arriving in the UK. Despite the lack of any evidence there was a lot of tabloid coverage about people coming to the UK to get free treatment. Forty years on the same tabloids are saying the same thing. As you correctly say funding is provided by the tax payers, but taxpayers are not all English, or even British, all persons working in the UK pay tax, this included Ama Sumani. However, some tax payers do not work as they have unearned income and may not necessarily be hard working. When somebody gets treatment from the NHS whether or not they have worked, or paid tax, or enough tax to cover their treatment costs, is neither here nor there. It needs restating; the principle of the NHS is that treatment is free at the point of need. Need is the value that is measured. The NHS was never meant to judge the patient. This is what used to happen before the NHS when only the deserving poor were thought worthy of help. If you are, or have ever been in need of, major and prolonged treatment under the NHS it is unlikely that you will have paid enough taxes to cover your treatment. Your treatment will have been paid for by those lucky enough never to have been seriously ill. Hopefully, they will be grateful for their good health, rather than angry about the high cost of your treatment to them as a tax payer.
{Regular readers will want to know that his is a different DH ~Admin}
Beth 02.24.08 at 10:19 pm
DH, I’m pretty much in agreement with you. Except, of course, that it doesn’t work that way. I have had enough proof in my life from having a couple of bouts of major (and chronic) illness that getting decent NHS treatment - even if you are a British taxpayer or a child of British taxpayers - is a lottery. I’m not particularly happy with the idea that my odds in this lottery can be made even worse by people who shouldn’t be in the country in the first place. This country doubtless has enough money to look after the health of all its citizens adequately. But it doesn’t choose to do so. I’m one of the people who has suffered from that.
Should Ama Sumani have been deported in the middle of her treatment? No, absolutely not. Should she have been in the country in the first place and therefore eligible for treatment? “No” to that, too.
You can only start to extend charity once you have something to give. The NHS has nothing to spare.
Kim 02.24.08 at 11:00 pm
We must disabuse ourselves of the idea that the gospel has anything to do with charity, that is to say, with giving from what we have just so long as we have something left over. Even pagans do that! Rather the gospel has to do with radical dispossession. Nicholas Lash and Rowan Williams are both our teachers here. So too is Arthur C. McGill, who in his slender, brilliant volume Suffering: A Test of Theological Method (1982), writes:
“Jesus does not identify love primarily with producing good in the lives of others. Nor does he equate it with what we call ‘philanthropy,’ that is, the giving of surplus wealth or surplus time to help others. On the contrary a man only begins to love as Jesus commands when he gives out of what is essential to him, out of what he cannot ‘afford.’ For Jesus, it is the deliberate and uninhibited willingness to expend oneself for another that constitutes love. And Jesus’ own existence is the most overwhelming demonstration of this way. From first to last he lived a life of self-expending service, walking the second mile, giving everything to feed the poor, and even laying down his life for his friends.”
Impractical? “Of course, says Jesus! Of course, if you live in this way you will be used up by others. Of course, they will take everything you have. That is why you should expect this self-expenditure to lead sooner or later to your death. He is quite clear and unafraind aout the practical implications of his teaching…”
Put it like this: only an idiot shepherd leaves ninety-nine strong sheep to go looking for a singe runt.
In short, the gospel does not have any “practical” advice to give to the NHS. It only has impractical advice to give - even if only those who have ears to hear will hear it.
Beth 02.24.08 at 11:17 pm
Fine. But the NHS has a duty to me. I grew up here. I live here. My parents and grandparents and so on ad infinitum paid taxes. I pay taxes that I can’t afford. I need medical treatment that I can’t get. The NHS doesn’t have the right to offer its resources to other people when it can’t even look after those who are legally entitled to its care.
Lisa 02.27.08 at 5:35 pm
I knew Ama personally and i think that some of the comments on this site begger belief. I do believe that the national health service should be primarily for the british tax payer but has society gone down such a road that we show no compassion. If the authorities had been doing there job properly then they would have ensured that she had adequate provision in her own country before sending her back to die.