Migrant won't be deported because of his ‘Covid trauma'
A Ghanaian asylum seeker has won a human rights claim to remain in the UK because of his 'trauma' from contracting Covid.
Winfred Kwabla Dogbey, 52, claimed he could not be returned to Ghana because the effects of the virus on his health had been so severe that he would not get the necessary treatment in his home country.
He was diagnosed with PTSD after he was hospitalised with the virus in 2020 and was part of a rehabilitation programme in the UK to treat his 'post Covid-19 syndrome'.
An immigration tribunal was told the type of treatment that he needed was 'practically non-existent' in Ghana and the available psychiatric care was 'insufficient' to meet demand.
After hearing of how Mr Dogbey would likely experience a 'rapid and severe decline in his mental health' if he were to return to Ghana, the upper tier tribunal backed his claim to stay in the UK.
The tribunal accepted it would be a breach of his Article 3 rights under the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), which bars persecution, inhuman treatment and torture.
The case, disclosed in court papers, is the latest example exposed by The Telegraph where illegal migrants or convicted foreign criminals have used human rights laws to remain in the UK or halt their deportations.
There are a record 41,987 outstanding immigration appeals, largely on human rights grounds, which Labour has pledged to clear by halving the time it takes for them to come to court to 24 days.
Mr Dogbey came to the UK in April 2013 on a visa and claimed asylum in June 2016 but was refused. This was followed by a 'protracted history of lodging further submissions' for asylum, according to the tribunal.
He was hospitalised and required critical care after contracting Covid-19 in May 2020, which resulted in 'very severe' pneumonia and associated multi-organ failure. Doctors confirmed he was left with 'post Covid-19 syndrome', 'moderately severe' PTSD and moderate depression.
After a further asylum claim was rejected in Dec 2023, Mr Dogbey argued that there would be 'very significant obstacles' to his integration in Ghana, if he were to be returned. The tribunal heard he was taking part in a 'Covid-19 rehabilitation programme' and was receiving physiotherapy appointments.
The upper tribunal Judge Khan and deputy Judge Gill said they were 'satisfied' that Mr Dogbey's health conditions persisted and agreed he was a 'seriously ill person'.
Lawyers representing the Home Office argued that both treatment and medical care was available to Mr Dogbey in Ghana. They said there were psychiatric hospitals in the West African country. But the panel noted that the Home Office had ''conceded' that there was insufficient psychiatric care to meet the demand.
Mr Dogbey's lawyers referred to a report that stated he would be 'highly unlikely' to receive professional mental and physical health services in Ghana. The tribunal heard that 0.6 per cent of Ghanaians with a major depressive disorder were able to receive treatment.
It was said that even those patients who were able to access mental health treatment received 'poor quality of care'. The judgment said: 'Ghanaians with severe mental health illnesses are referred to psychiatric hospitals and prayer camps. They experience 'human rights abuses in both' where they suffer further trauma.'
His lawyers referred to evidence which stated that in hospitals, patients were 'forcibly coerced, including sedated and beaten, into taking the prescribed mental health medication, and are given electroconvulsive therapy without use of anaesthesia'.
Judge Gill said: 'Given the severe and systemic problems identified in the provision of mental health services, and with no evidence before us to suggest that the position is likely to change, we determine that mental health treatment is not reasonably likely to be accessible or become available to [Mr Dogbey] for his mental health conditions.
'We therefore find... that [Mr Dogbey] would face a real risk of being exposed to a serious, rapid and irreversible decline in his state of health resulting in intense suffering.'
The judge said he is allowed to stay on the grounds of Article 3 of the ECHR.
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