Woman granted UK visa to donate bone marrow to sister in U-turn by Home Office

The government has backtracked on its decision to prevent a Nigerian woman from entering the UK so that she can donate bone marrow to help save the life of her seriously ill sister.

The decision came amid public pressure after a petition calling for May Brown’s sister Martha to be granted a visa was signed by more than 60,000 people.

“I am overjoyed for the U-turn the Home Office has taken,” she said on Friday. “I would like to thank the British public and beyond, and my MP Richard Drax, for their overwhelming support.”

May Brown, who lives in Dorset and has a two-year-old daughter Selina-May with her ex-soldier husband Mike, was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia last year. Doctors said her only chance of survival was a stem cell transplant and assessed her sister, who lives in Nigeria with her own two young children, as a “10 out of 10 match”, campaigners said.

She was the only suitable match to be identified after what doctors at King’s College Hospital, London, said was “an extensive search” for another donor.

But earlier this month it emerged that Home Office officials had refused Martha the visa, saying they did not believe she would be a “genuine visitor”. Despite May Brown’s offer to pay for the trip, the officials believed Martha did not have the necessary funds to make it and that she would not return to Nigeria once the visa expired.

May Brown insisted her sister, whose children were to stay behind in Nigeria, had “no desire” to relocate to the UK.

A campaign led by the African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust (ACLT) called for the decision to be reversed and the immigration minister, Robert Goodwill, confirmed the Home Office had relented on Friday.

“I have carefully considered the case of May Brown and decided that her sister will be granted leave to enter the UK given the compassionate and exceptional circumstances,” he said.

May Brown added: “I would also like to thank ACLT. I will forever be grateful for the love and support they have shown my family and me.”

She is currently receiving her second round of intensive chemotherapy at King’s College Hospital.

Woman granted UK visa to donate bone marrow to sister in U-turn by Home Office

Doctors freed to speak about Australia"s detention regime after U-turn

Doctors have been released to speak out about conditions and medical treatment in Australia’s immigration detention system, after a backdown from the government on one of the most contentious elements of the Australian Border Force Act.

The secretary of the immigration department, Michael Pezzullo, signed an amendment on 30 September specifically carving out “health professionals” from the definition of “immigration and border protection workers”.

The amendment means the secrecy and disclosure provisions of the Border Force Act no longer apply to a comprehensive list of health professionals, including doctors, nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors, midwives, pharmacists and dentists.

Other professionals working in onshore and offshore immigration detention, including teachers, lawyers, security staff, social workers and other staff, have not been exempted from speaking out. They still face a jail term of up to two years for any “unauthorised disclosure”.

The backdown came ahead of the commencement of high court challenge from medical advocacy group Doctors for Refugees contesting section 42 – the secrecy provisions – of the Border Force Act.

Dr Barri Phatarfod, president of Doctors for Refugees, said the decision was a “huge win for doctors and recognition that our code of ethics is paramount”.

But she said the change only allowed for doctors to publicly advocate on behalf of their patients, “it doesn’t change the appalling lack of care they often seem to receive”.

“Currently, Doctors for Refugees is advocating for several children denied special needs care as well as women unable to get a breast lump biopsy and other significant deviations from appropriate medical treatment. We have around 160 active cases of concern.”

Doctors have led public criticism of conditions in immigration detention, particularly in the Australian-run offshore processing camps in Nauru and on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island. A stream of disclosures from health professionals has revealed systemic abuses, including rape, sexual abuse of women and children, violent assault, as well as epidemic levels of self-harm and suicide.

Dr Peter Young, formerly the head of mental health for immigration detention healthcare provider IHMS, was one of the earliest whistleblowers on abusive conditions and inadequate care in offshore detention.

He told the Guardian in 2014 that conditions in offshore detention on Nauru and Manus Island were “akin to torture”, in an “environment that was inherently toxic”.

On Tuesday Young said the amendment was a major win for doctors and other health professionals who could now freely advocate for better health care for their patients, without fear of prosecution.

“It’s a big backdown from the government, and they’ve made it because they didn’t want to go to court, they knew they were going to lose, and they didn’t want their planning and policies discoverable in an open court. That’s what it’s about.”

He said the government had quietly made the amendment last month, without broadcasting it, because they wanted the Border Force Act to retain its “chilling affect” on public dissension about detention policies.

“Now, for doctors and nurses and other health professionals, it’s even more incumbent on them, those people who have witnessed these things, to come out speak about what is occurring in immigration detention.

“There is nothing stopping them now, except for their own consciences. It’s their ethical duty to speak out.”

Earlier this year, traumatologist and psychologist Paul Stevenson, who has spent 40 years working with the victims of trauma, said conditions in offshore were “the worst atrocity I’ve seen”.

Guardian Australia has approached the Department of Immigration and Border Protection for comment.

Doctors freed to speak about Australia"s detention regime after U-turn

Poland signals U-turn on total abortion ban after protests – video report

A proposed total abortion ban in Poland will not be implemented, a member of the government has said on Wednesday, describing mass protests against the ban on Monday as a lesson in humility for the country’s leadership. The proposed total abortion ban would have outlawed the practice even in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk

Poland signals U-turn on total abortion ban after protests – video report

Polish government signals U-turn on total abortion ban

A proposed total abortion ban in Poland will not be implemented, a member of the government has said, describing mass protests against the ban as a lesson in humility for the country’s leadership.

Jarosław Gowin, the minister of science and higher education, said on Wednesday that the protests by women have “caused us to think and taught us humility”.

The comments appear to indicate that Poland’s conservative leadership will withhold support from the highly unpopular proposal to ban abortions, even in cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s life is at risk.

The rightwing government, led by the Law and Justice party, is also under international pressure not to move forward with the plan, with a debate scheduled for Wednesday in the European parliament on the situation of women in Poland.

Poland already outlaws abortions, with exceptions made only for rape, incest, badly damaged foetuses or if the mother’s life is at risk. In practice, though, some doctors refuse to perform even legal abortions, citing moral objections.

Polish women seeking abortions typically go to Germany or other neighbouring countries to get them or order abortion pills online.

Also on Wednesday, the Senate speaker, Stanisław Karczewski, said Poland’s upper house of parliament would not initiate work on a bill that would further restrict Poland’s abortion law.

Karczewski said senators would wait to see what the more powerful lower house of parliament would do. However, he voiced support for a ban on abortions of foetuses with Down’s syndrome, something currently allowed.

“They are wonderful children, very much loved by their parents, very loving parents, bringing a lot of warmth and a lot of love into a home. I am a great opponent of killing such children,” Karczewski said.

An anti-abortion initiative gathered 450,000 signatures in support of the total abortion ban. A parliamentary commission is now analysing it. Politicians voted against considering a separate initiative for a more liberal abortion law.

The matter has led to mass protests, the largest on Monday when thousands of women turned out dressed in black. Many also boycotted work and classes.

Polish government signals U-turn on total abortion ban

The alcohol pricing U-turn exhibits the power of the organization lobby | Anne Perkins

‘Investigators have established there have been 130 meetings between the drinks market and coalition ministers, such as two that took spot right after consultation on the proposed minimal pricing legislation had ended.’ Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

A minimal value for alcohol is a single of those policies that seems so wise – the only mystery is that it hasn’t currently been launched. (I speak as one who surreptitiously visits alcohol concern web sites to verify exactly where on the functioning alcoholic spectrum they fit). There are various ways of undertaking it, but in 2012 there was general enthusiasm when the coalition confirmed it would fulfil its pledge to carry in minimal pricing by alcoholic unit. The only question was at what level.

It looked like a carried out deal. Yet within months there were indications that the policy was falling out of favour. In July it was announced – to some shock – that the consultation had produced a clear majority towards and the policy was abandoned.

The charity Alcohol Policy Uk has presently pointed out that while the consultation on the legislation had asked for views on the suitable pricing level per unit of alcohol, the health secretary presented it as if all these who desired a higher level than the 45p proposed had been the same as people who did not want any minimum at all. The “no” vote was added to the “not at this level” vote. Not so significantly massaging the figures as dislocating them.

The most current problem of the BMJ supplies a persuasive explanation for why the government killed off its very own initiative, even although the Canadian encounter is exhibiting what professionals contact “dramatic” benefits to public overall health. Their investigators have established that there have been 130 meetings amongst the drinks industry and coalition ministers, such as two that took place after consultation on the proposed minimal pricing legislation had ended. Probably they have been arranging for the Tory party conference in October, the place drinks giant Diageo was sponsoring a cocktail lounge.

Today, in an astonishingly temperate intervention, Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, the Royal University of Physicians’ alcohol adviser, along with 21 other authorities in public well being and liver illness, have written a letter in the Every day Telegraph suggesting with masterly understatement that big organization may be trumping public well being issues.

It seems to be obtaining trickier and trickier to keep funds and politics apart. Here’s a listing of curious developments in the planet the place the two collide. Plain packaging for cigarettes, yet another instance of David Cameron’s worthy claim of getting in politics to do the correct point, not the popular factor: it went into the wonderful political ashtray final July too. There are recommendations it might come back soon after the election, depending on the proof. Australians seem to be fairly convinced presently. As their former prime minister, Julia Gillard, argued in a blog final month, this is a global campaign towards a single of the world’s biggest industries, and they aren’t going to give up simply. And, while Cameron insists it’s very irrelevant, it need to be comforting for the market that their guy Lynton Crosby is 1 of the prime minister’s closest advisers.

The evidence is that British politics and certainly the great vast majority of British politicians are decent and well-meaning. But the impression is that the hand of big organization is found as well shut, also usually, to huge choices. From finance to housing to healthcare, there are repeated signs of something far more than the shared goals that a rightwing government and personal business could be presumed to take pleasure in. The stupendously misnamed transparency of lobbying bill, now virtually on the statute book, was trailed as the solution. Its weedy, misjudged restrictions on third-celebration action and its partisan assault on the unions will do precisely practically nothing to adjust that impression.

It truly is damagingly straightforward to spot conspiracy the place it isn’t going to exist, all the a lot more so in which voters have become so sceptical about the political approach. Putting it right is going to get a prolonged time. But it would be a start off if the political class would recognise just what they do to public believe in every time they weasel out of undertaking something their backers do not like.

The alcohol pricing U-turn exhibits the power of the organization lobby | Anne Perkins