Tag: Nigeria

Standing taller…

Alan the food bank manager passes on some heartening news. “Elizabeth”, the Nigerian lady who came in two weeks ago with her baby, returned  to our London food bank on Friday with her children.  The older two were off school because of half term. At first the volunteers weren’t sure it was her.  Alan says she was much brighter, and “standing taller”.

When I interviewed her a fortnight ago, she was very low and so overcome by trauma that she spoke in a whisper. Her husband tried to commit suicide by hanging some weeks earlier. Her eight year old daughter had to fetch a knife to cut the rope.

Alan tells me: “We had a good chat and it seems that social services are now fully involved and are helping her. The kids were sweet and very engaging. It was so good to see her looking so much better, even though hubby is still in hospital and not making much progress. Still we pray….”

This food bank is one of almost 400 set up by the Trussell Trust – which partners with churches and communities to provide a supply of at least three days emergency food to those in a crisis. Alan is the kindest of people and devotes his life to providing practical help to his food bank clients. He also believes in the power of  divine intervention and prayer, as do many of the volunteers who help here in this borough.

I respect Alan’s strong Christian beliefs, which motivate him to do this work.  But  I’m much more of a believer in the power of citizens  to protest at this government’s targeting of  the poorest and most vulnerable. The current direction of welfare and immigration  policies is disturbing – and is turning people like Elizabeth and her family into England’s scapegoats.  A perceptive article in the New Statesman describes the Immigration Bill as an “explicit response” to public perceptions that the benefit system is a “magnet for migrants coming to access more generous benefits that they would receive at home, even though there is very little hard evidence of this…” This Bill, says the article’s author Alex Glennie, is “essentially a statement of intent and a triumph of symbolism over substance, designed to send a message that the government is serious about creating a hostile environment for those whose legal right to live and work in the UK is in question”.

I would guess that Elizabeth has contributed much to the UK.  She rents privately and is receiving maternity pay of £278 a fortnight from her job as a support worker for the elderly.  Elizabeth has been looking after London’s elderly parents and grandparents. Her maternity pay doesn’t cover her rent to the private landlord, food and bills.  Her husband had to leave his accountancy training course because of his depression and is still very ill following his suicide bid.  Elizabeth says he had to stop working while on the course because of changes in the visa rules (the couple are applying to stay permanently in the UK).

As well as myths about immigration, there are also an increasing number of  fables in circulation about why food banks are growing in “popularity” – for want of a better word. One of the 10 most common myths about food  banks is that they create dependency and don’t address the causes of poverty. If people come to a food bank more than three times in six months the system flags this so that the food bank manager can contact the service or person that referred them. They can then make sure a plan is in place to help the client overcome poverty. Elizabeth was referred by her GP,  who would seem to be very much on the ball and has made the referral to social services. Of course it won’t be easy for Elizabeth to improve her family’s circumstances quickly. But there are some optimistic signs now that she’s on the radar of  an alert GP and social services.

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‘Elizabeth’, her sick husband, and the knife

Health secretary Jeremy Hunt is appointing a new NHS director of costs. His job, says Mr Hunt, will be  to help the health service ‘get better’ at charging immigrants who are already in Britain, but not eligible for free treatment on the NHS. The coalition’s position is that short term immigrant and foreign visitors should pay more than £500m a year towards the cost of their NHS care.

Let’s look at the account of one woman who came to our London food bank a few days ago, and who happens to be making an immigration application.  ‘Elizabeth’ (not her real name)  came to the UK from Nigeria with her husband in 2010, and she is the quietest, saddest-looking woman I’ve seen for a long time. She brought her baby boy of seven months, who was fast asleep.

In a voice that’s no more than a whisper, she slowly, painfully, tells me her story.  I desperately hope that this is the worst account from a food bank client that I ever have to pass on.

Both Elizabeth and her husband have been renewing their visas while they try to negotiate the immigration application process. They also have two older children  – a girl of eight and a son of five. Elizabeth says: ‘My husband is in hospital. He has depression and he’s had it since 2010. He was working for 20 hours a week, and was also a student. But the rules changed and he wasn’t allowed to work. He was studying to be an ACCA (chartered accountant), and he has passed the first stage. But he has been in hospital now for over a month.’

How do they all survive, now that he is unable to work? ‘My maternity pay is the only money coming in. I get £278 every fortnight, from my job as a support worker for the elderly. A social worker is getting involved now, and is looking at whether there will be any financial help with regard to the rent.’

Why has a social worker suddenly intervened? Elizabeth tells me of the terrible circumstances which led to her husband being taken into a mental health unit as an in-patient recently: ‘He tried to commit suicide. I called the ambulance. My eight year old daughter got me a knife and I cut the rope.’ This poor woman’s daughter saw everything. By the time she’d reached the end of the account she had broken down and was in tears.

The stress this woman is going through, along with three small children, is horrific. Elizabeth’s GP was able to ease things a little by giving her a voucher for the food bank. We were then able to give her an emergency supply of food, including some nappies. She stayed with us for quite a while that afternoon, and I hope that talking to us about this almost unimaginable trauma, helped her – even a little. At least  – small comfort – she was able to feed herself and her two older children that weekend. She is still breast-feeding her baby.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Elizabeth and her family this week. Let’s hope that he responds well to the treatment he’s receiving. I’m not completely sure whether she and her husband have ‘temporary migrant’ status – It looks as if they do. What is a ‘health tourist’? Is Elizabeth’s husband one of those? If these new proposals supported by Jeremy Hunt do make their way into law – the Immigration Bill was passed yesterday by 303 votes to 18 – at what point during his recovery would some NHS doctor have to present Elizabeth’s husband with the bill for his treatment?