Heartless Home Office decision

[ApocalypseSlough]

A Nigerian man with the right to work and live in London has had his brother's visa to visit and donate bone marrow refused, even though the sick man's employer has guaranteed his stay/ will pay for flights.
Details here
Apparently it's been picked up by the Standard and Mirror, please comment to show your support. I'll post links (unless the consensus is that he shouldn't come in which case I won't!)!

I thought there was an international bone marrow donor scheme in place. So we could possibly be flying people in from all over the world all the time to donate bone marrow to someone in the UK. What's the problem here - is it because the proposed recipient is Nigerian? Unbelievable.

I have nothing against his brother coming here however he does not need to be in the country to donate, he donates in Nigeria, a courier brings the stem cells to the UK, they are infused into his brother within 48 hours. Another issue with this is it stated he is only a 50% match, this isn't a good enough match and he would likely have acute graft versus host disease and die from that. this story doesn't appear to add up.

BonnetUK, it's untrue that a 50% match isn't good enough - see this, for example.

It's much, much safer for the brother to travel to London: as stated above, there isn't really a bone marrow donation service in Nigeria, hospital conditions there are pretty poor, and there are all sorts of risks around the transfer not being done properly, planes being delayed, etc. And anyway, why go to all the trouble to do that when there is a generous donor prepared to cover the costs of travel?

Blimey. mathsmum nasty!
If someone you know and love has been denied treatment then that is shit but not grounds to say someone else should suffer?

Although that could just be a smokescreen and you'd actually deny this man treatment because you're a twat

50% can be done but as I stated earlier he will get acute GvHD and most likely die from that.

There is a Nigerian registry that it could be done by, it is feasible that he could donate over there.

Nigerian hospitals are generally a poor standard. It's feasible to donate there, but much more risky to both parties. And, in fact, that would be much more expensive to the NHS who would have to pay for the courier service.

Self-evidently, a 50% match is better than no match at all.

Yes, Nigerian hospitals may be of a poor standard but there wouldn't be a bone marrow registry if they weren't able to perform the donation.

It won't impact the NHS, it will be paid for by the Anthony Nolan, courier costs are paid for by the transplant centre, the NHS don't do UK donations.

You don't appear to understand that if he is only a 50% match that it will never likely take place, it wouldn't be signed off by the transplant centre. The patient is highly unlikely to survive.

Bonnet, none of that matters seeing as the brother's costs have been guaranteed by a third party.

So why should the Anthony Nolan Trust have to pay the Nigerian hospital authorities and the courier service when there's a private school prepared to pay for the brother to come over? It's ridiculous to take the risk of a mess-up with the bone-marrow extraction or a mistake in packing and transport arrangements just for the sake of stopping the brother travelling to the UK for a short period.

I don't know where you get the idea that the transplant centre would refuse to do a 50% match. The cancer.net website, for instance, says:

Parent-child transplant and haplotype mismatched transplant. These types of transplants are being used more commonly. The match is 50%, instead of near 100%. Your donor might be a parent, child, brother, or sister.

And the Anthony Nolan website says:

"In some cases, doctors may consider using stem cells from one of your relatives whose HLA partially matches. This is known as a ‘haplo-identical’ match or ‘half-match’. Parents are always a half-match for their children and vice versa. Siblings have a one in two (50 percent) chance of being a half-match for each other. Talk to your transplant team about whether this is an option for you."

And presumably in this case it is an option. This patient is unlikely to survive without the transplant.

Here are the details to show your support:
Immigration enquiries
020 7035 4848
Home Office, 2 Marsham Street, London, SW1P 4DF
[email protected]
petition
Thank you.

Have some of you also not realized that ok this could be done with the two brothers in different continents. But maybe, just maybe they would also like to see each other. The guy is seriously ill in hospital. Maybe they want to say goodbyes for you know just in case.
A 50% chance is better than no chance.

Please sign and share again: Petition
More info here

His brother's visa has been granted. Here

Oh that's great. Fingers crossed for him

Phew, that is great news.

Such good news! Hope the Home Office takes note for next time yeah right

Apocalypse thanks for the update. Lovely to see a good outcome to the admin.

Now let's hope for a good outcome medically.

Thank you for the update ApocalypseSlough

I'm very pleased to hear this -

From a BREXIT-er, and certainly non-racist