Rajen Prasad
Labour MP

26 May 2014

Kidney case deportee dies

It is a tragedy that Sanil Kumar the young man who was deported back to Fiji a month ago has now died, says Labour MP Rajen Prasad.

Kumar who needed an urgent kidney transplant had to leave New Zealand after the Associate Minister of Immigration Nikki Kaye refused to intervene in his case.

“Sanil Kumar was forced to leave New Zealand on 24 April and lost an opportunity to undergo a kidney transplant in New Zealand. This was despite his family having raised the funds required for the operation and his cousin being part way through tissue matching procedures to be a kidney donor.

“I am particularly sad that New Zealand could not extend compassion to Sanil in his hour of need. I can't see what would have been the harm to New Zealand if Sanil had been allowed to go through his procedure here.

“He was returned to Fiji to have an operation to prepare him for dialysis the day he arrived. He had been receiving dialysis at Lautoka Hospital. Apparently he contracted an infection and died this morning.

“Despite our advocacy for New Zealand to show compassion our worse fears have been realised.

“The New Zealand Immigration system has been utterly heartless as Sanil had a kidney donor within his family and his community were busy raising the $130,000 needed for the transplant operation.

“He was deported, to what I predicted in April, would be his almost certain death as he simply wasn’t given the chance to have the operation in New Zealand. It was also clear a month ago that the type of dialysis treatment he had been receiving in New Zealand was not available in Fiji.

“A sensible Minister and an intelligent Immigration system would have understood that this was a life and death issue for Sanil.

“I can only pass on my condolences for Sanil’s family and pray that our Immigration system can show a lot more humanity in the future in such sad cases.”

ENDS

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