The Home Office has been accused of abandoning 55 asylum seekers with a range of severe disabilities and life-limiting conditions at a former care home in an Essex seaside town.
The asylum seekers, who fled various conflict zones including Sudan and Afghanistan, are struggling with a range of health conditions they have suffered from since childhood or life-changing injuries suffered in war zones.
One told the Guardian: “Everybody is suffering in this place. It used to be a care home but now there is no care. We are free to come and go but to me, this place feels like an open prison. We have just been left here and abandoned.”
Those living in the former care home are struggling with health conditions including loss of limbs, blindness, deafness and mobility issues requiring a wheelchair – although not all have been able to access one. At least eight are paraplegic.
One man struggles to walk with three bullets in his ankle, and another lost his toes while living in the property due to diabetes. Some have difficulty leaving their rooms due to their health conditions.
They were placed in the former care home, which opened in November, by Home Office officials. It is staffed like a standard Home Office asylum seeker hotel with security guards and reception staff but does not have trained care workers or nurses there as part of the contract.
Many travelled to the UK on small boats and were sent to the former care home directly from Manston, the controversial Home Office processing centre for small boat arrivals in Kent.
On 18 June an Iranian asylum seeker living in the property died. With restricted mobility due to strokes, doctors had repeatedly said he needed a wheelchair but he never received one. He is thought to have suffered a fatal stroke.
The Guardian interviewed one woman whose motor and sensory neuropathies mean she is largely bed-bound. “I can walk a little bit if I have help but there is nobody to help me so I am confined to my room most of the time,” she said. “My feet have swollen badly because I’m not moving.”
The woman has fallen three times and on one occasion was left on the floor for 14 hours because the Home Office subcontractors on the site – security guards and reception staff – are not trained carers and were not allowed to pick her up.
Tendring district council said it had “robustly” expressed concerns about the site’s suitability, which it described as “unsuitable” for asylum seekers placed there and the existing community, given added pressures on services and levels of deprivation.
“People placed here are vulnerable due to additional care needs, and we have been doing what we can within our remit, and the bounds of propriety, to help them,” a council spokesperson said. “We are not the commissioning authority or the funder for the services being provided on-site.”
The charity Refugee, Asylum Seeker and Migrant Action has been providing support for the residents using its own funds, but says it no longer has enough to purchase clothing, disability equipment and other essentials for the 55-77 people living there.
Maria Wilby, operational lead for the charity said: “It is cruel to stick these vulnerable people here in the middle of nowhere. We are literally watching them fall apart.”
A retired NHS professional, who is advocating for the asylum seekers, said the cases he was seeing were worse than those he had encountered in his 40-year NHS career. “Everyone has a major medical issue. It’s all very well putting them in one place like putting them in a dustbin and putting the lid on. But what they need is help. What is going on is unpardonable,” he said.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of those on asylum support, including people with disabilities.
“However, we do not operate care homes nor commission ‘care’ as it is not within our statutory remit. Asylum accommodation providers are contractually obliged to ensure accommodation is accessible for disabled people and where concerns are raised we work with providers to ensure they are addressed.”
Home Office sources said: “We are aware of the tragic passing of the asylum seeker who had been hospitalised.”
