CANCER DILEMMA FOR JAMAICAN IN UK: 63 y-o J'can Albert Thompson in UK told to pay £54,000 for treatment unless citizenship proven. He has lived there for 40 years.

Albert Thompson

A Jamaican man in the United Kingdom is being refused treatment for prostate cancer despite living there for more than 40 years, Britain's Guardiannewspaper has reported.

The newspaper report names the man as Albert Thompson, 63, and said he has not been receiving the radiotherapy treatment he needs because he has been unable to provide officials with sufficient documentary evidence that he has lived in the UK continuously since arriving from Jamaica as a teenager in 1973.

Thompson, the Guardian said, was told to provide the evidence or pay £54,000 for his treatment.

Britain's Prime Minister Teresa May, in a letter to Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who brought the situation to her attention, said: “No urgent treatment should ever be withheld or delayed by the NHS regardless of ability of willingness to pay.”

The Guardian reported that regulations introduced last October require hospitals to check patients' paperwork, including passports and proof of address, and charge upfront for their health care if they do not have documentary proof of eligibility unless the treatment is deemed to be urgent. “The decision on whether his treatment is urgent or immediately necessary must rightly be made by the clinicians treating him,” Prime Minister May wrote. more