UK refuses health care to its own Overseas Territories citizen
![Cherry Brown has said, ‘If I had known all of these things [would happen to me] I would have stayed home and died in my bed in peace.’. Photo: Cherry Brown/The Guardian](https://www.virginislandsnewsonline.com/cache/images/800x_c_Cherry_Brown.jpg)
According to the UK publication, The Guardian, Council officials found Cherry Brown, 69, “sleeping rough” in a park in Swanley, Kent, in April. Brown had been funded by the Montserratian government – whose budget is largely subsidised by the UK – to travel to England to receive treatment from the NHS that was not available at home.
Once in the UK, according to The Guardian, Brown 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 – which differs from that of British citizenship.
Brown has hypertension and needs two knee replacements, among other health issues.
'Insult to injury'
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.
“Cherry was stuck in limbo, hence Swanley and myself were trying to support her until Kent county council could house her,” he said. “Then, to add insult to injury, Cherry started to receive the bills [from the NHS].”
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 had offered to wipe “any alleged debts” if Brown voluntarily returned to Montserrat – but that would leave her without the care she desperately needed.
'The injustice is stark'
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 care.
In a letter to the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Romeo drew a parallel to the Windrush scandal, 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.
He added: “The injustice is stark … British overseas territory citizens such as Ms Brown and Mr Baker are left in peril abroad, on UK and Commonwealth soil without … humanitarian assistance.”
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.
On arriving in the UK she discovered she was not on the programme, and the NHS charged her for her care.
“If I had known all of these things [would happen to me], I would have stayed home and died in my bed in peace,” Brown told the Guardian.
Home Office silent
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.
“It’s time for us as Montserratians to stand up and demand that we’re treated as equal human beings, as citizens … and insist that the British government provides for us to the best of their ability … that they at least treat us with the respect given under human rights law,” he said.
Andrew Rosindell, the shadow FCDO undersecretary, said the British government needed to do more to support the people of Montserrat.
The Home Office and the FCDO declined to comment, The Guardian reported.
The UK has long been accused of neglecting its Overseas Territories, even while not doing enough to help those territories become independent nations, as mandated by the United Nations charter.
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55 Responses to “UK refuses health care to its own Overseas Territories citizen”
I will look out for that going forwards. Every time a blacik person is refused something they are not legally entitled to (in the same way white people are not) they should be given it.
Is it just this one as you seems to infer or can all Black people just expect access to anything going forwards. I can get behind that. Imagine the chaos.
Imagine Black people as your ‘beloved pets’; now, imagine one of them is in need of assistance with her ankles, similar to this lady's situation. Surely, you can find it necessary to gather your financial resources to support your pet and alleviate its suffering. I am sure you can sympathize now although your cherished pet do not qualify for your UK Assistance, nor is she eligible for reparations from slavery, as was the case for white UK slave owners until 2015—of course not, as that is only for white humans.
I believe that now you can certainly imagine showing much more compassion towards your furry Black companions, whom you have chosen to live among?
I wonder if it you that is incapable of showing compassion for regardless of whether they are white or black. Clearly neither are entitled to assistance. If you are going to give the Black Dog assistance because a White Planter got money then you also need to give assistance to the White Cat, because neither the Black Cat or the White Cat, or their descendants got the money the Planters got.
I personally would not just root for the Black Dog. I would root for the White Cat as well, because better is that being black nor being white should bring entitlement.
I don't really agree with white entitlement, rich entitlement, class entitlement, political entitlement, Virgin Islander Entitlement, friends and family entitlement or black entitlement. It is usually the road to corruption.
In this case could we help the black dog. It would be nice. But it would be nice to help the white cat too.
The law says we help neither and I am good with that and if we want to change the law i am happy with that too. And if we want to behave with compassion to White Cat and the Black Dog I am happy with that too. Discrimination I am not so happy about.
Black people have a strong history of powerful and influential peoples and nations.
Complicit Western Nations, interestingly, recently also have had a Black President, the UK has a black leader of the Opposition, a Black Deputy Prime Minister and recently a Prime Minister of Asian descent and many other leading Ministers from interesting backgrounds mixed in the diverse past of the history, sometimes horrific, of the world.
Some people like to paint situations always as a black and white thing and you appear to be one of those, while you conveniently miss other realities of the dreadful past. Your rightly mention that there is an on going systemic racial bias against black individuals, as there is against "down islanders" in the VI and discrimination is actually written into the constitution of the Virgin Islands. There are many on going systemic biases against many different groups in different places each which their own historical stories. Slavery itself is not simply a story of white on black and itself is a complex web of those very issues.
You mention compassion but I am not feeling any compassion from you, for any but your self and your own. It is that lack of compassion for, and lack of awareness of others, that I saw in the article and was behind my first post.
It would be great that the lady could get health care she was not entitled to but white ones are not entitled either and are also refused.
I am all for the White Dogs and Black Cats and White and Black people getting the treatment to which they are entitled. They should also be entitled to the same thing. I would like that it was better for all.
It us you that are not for that whilst calling out others for lack of compassion.
Ultimately you may take time with your Lord to revisit compassion and I hope that your Lord helps you to find a fruitful path.
'What manner of heartless individual roams this world to make and/or agree with such a statement? First and foremost, the UK forcibly removed Africans from their homes and enslaved them to enhance their economy, compensated plantation owners through taxes imposed on UK citizens until just recently, refuses to acknowledge their genocide of these individuals, and now, when one of them requires medical care, they demand she return to her home or face penalties for medical fees. If there is not a place in hell set aside for all of you THEN and NOW!'
Just a bunch of lazy individuals who have enslaved a whole race so they can kick back and sip their tea all day as we labour to sweeten it! We've always been the ones taking care of it, and now its' envious and ungrateful citizens that have come to live in our home. We are the ones who have toiled hard throughout the centuries, and our free labour has guaranteed your people's parasitic survival in this world.
What really gets to you is that you know this truth, 'that can never be erased'. Across every generation, it will haunt your descendants as a reminder of our people's suffering and death. You and your offspring have inherited a legacy of humanity's racial disgrace. The mental payback of shame can often counterbalance the weight of indignity, especially when it's timeless.
Fair enough I guess...
I wish the lady recovery and hope she gets the help she needs
This and other associated dastardly acts, are recounted in my book "For the Sake of the Children".
With the estate now being quite appealing and financially beneficial, the expelled demons from the old houses in the woods have adopted modern strategies to justify their nefarious actions while attempting to malign the descendants of their victims; nevertheless, with God on our side, their end will be more severe.
Couldn't the officials there, pointed the lady to the correct office for Overseas Territories Citizens , to follow up on the correct protocols, for handling their way around the Kingdom systems?
The whole issue is just heartless!