{"id":172738,"date":"2025-10-01T12:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T12:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/172738\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T12:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T12:11:08","slug":"uk-accused-of-stark-injustice-as-woman-from-montserrat-refused-free-nhs-care-commonwealth-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/172738\/","title":{"rendered":"UK accused of \u2018stark injustice\u2019 as woman from Montserrat refused free NHS care | Commonwealth immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK has been accused of a \u201cstark injustice\u201d for failing to provide health services and humanitarian support to citizens of British overseas territories after a woman from the Caribbean island of Montserrat<\/a> was refused free NHS care and left homeless.<\/p>\n

Council officials found Cherry Brown, 69, sleeping rough in a park in Swanley, Kent, in April. Brown had been funded by the Montserratian government \u2013 whose budget is largely subsidised by the UK \u2013 to travel to England<\/a> to receive treatment from the NHS that was not available at home.<\/p>\n

Once in the UK she was unable to stay with relatives, and was told she did not have the right to housing or free medical treatment because of her status as a British overseas territory (BOT) citizen \u2013 which differs from that of British citizenship.<\/p>\n

Brown has hypertension and needs two knee replacements, among other health issues.<\/p>\n

\u2018If I had known all of these things [would happen to me] I would have stayed home and died in my bed in peace.\u2019 Photograph: Cherry Brown<\/p>\n

\u201cI became ill, can\u2019t manage work any more \u2026 then, I\u2019m sleeping in a park. I am homeless,\u201d she said. \u201cI just can\u2019t understand it. Travelling on a passport that\u2019s British.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ryan Hayman, the chief executive of Swanley town council, said he paid for a hotel for Brown and was later able to arrange temporary accommodation, but which had no access to cooking and laundry facilities.<\/p>\n

\u201cCherry was stuck in limbo, hence Swanley and myself were trying to support her until Kent<\/a> county council could house her,\u201d he said. \u201cThen, to add insult to injury, Cherry started to receive the bills [from the NHS].\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown is surviving on a small weekly stipend from Kent council, and said she had no way of paying the NHS for her care. Hayman told the Guardian that the Home Office<\/a> had offered to wipe \u201cany alleged debts\u201d if Brown voluntarily returned to Montserrat \u2013 but that would leave her without the care she desperately needed.<\/p>\n

Montserrat, one of 14 UK overseas territories, has been devastated by a string of natural disasters, including the 1995 eruption of the Soufri\u00e8re Hills volcano<\/a>, which destroyed its capital, Plymouth, and forced two-thirds of its population to flee. Thirty years later<\/a>, health facilities on the island have not been fully restored, officials there say.<\/p>\n

Brown said she loved her island and was keen to return after she got the treatment she needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t come here to live \u2026 I just need help to get my medical [care] to get me back on track and go home, because we do not have that kind of health service there,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you get a cold, you\u2019re OK. Anything higher than a seasonal flu, you\u2019re in problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donaldson Romeo, a Montserrat MP and a former premier of the island, has travelled to the UK to try to negotiate urgent assistance for Brown and another Montserratian, Robert Baker, who is in a hospital in Jamaica and who he wants to be brought to the UK for NHS<\/a> care.<\/p>\n

In a letter to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Romeo drew a parallel to the Windrush scandal<\/a>, when Caribbean people were wrongly detained and deported. He criticised the government for subsidising asylum seekers with no ties to the UK while refusing basic humanitarian support to BOT citizens.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe injustice is stark \u2026 British overseas territory citizens such as Ms Brown and Mr Baker are left in peril abroad, on UK and Commonwealth soil without \u2026 humanitarian assistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"DonaldsonDonaldson Romeo, a Montserrat MP and former premier of the island, has written to the FCDO drawing a comparison with the Windrush scandal. <\/p>\n

Brown had been told by the Montserrat government that she had been referred for assistance to travel to the UK, and believed she had qualified under a scheme that allows up to 10 overseas citizens from each BOT to receive NHS treatment each year.<\/p>\n

On arriving in the UK she discovered she was not on the programme, and the NHS charged her for her care.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I had known all of these things [would happen to me], I would have stayed home and died in my bed in peace,\u201d Brown told the Guardian.<\/p>\n

Under the policy, the overseas territories must cover travel and accommodation costs, and Romeo argued that the arrangement did not take into account the specific challenges facing the people of Montserrat which, since the volcano eruption, has been unable to restore its health infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time for us as Montserratians to stand up and demand that we\u2019re treated as equal human beings, as citizens \u2026 and insist that the British government provides for us to the best of their ability \u2026 that they at least treat us with the respect given under human rights law,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Andrew Rosindell, the shadow FCDO undersecretary, said the British government needed to do more to support the people of Montserrat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe the UK government has given the support that Montserrat needed to rebuild its infrastructure and to get properly back on its feet. It\u2019s taken far too long. I think that in Montserrat\u2019s case the UK government needs to be more willing to assist with cases like this. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s fair that Montserratians who, through no fault of their own, are left without being able to obtain the medical care and support they need,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Home Office and the FCDO declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK has been accused of a \u201cstark injustice\u201d for failing to provide health services and humanitarian support…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-172738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}