The deportation of a Ghanaian woman with terminal cancer was defended by the head of the immigration service yesterday, who disclosed that there were hundreds of similarly difficult cases each year.

Lin Homer said that the removal of Ama Sumani, who was in hospital in Cardiff, back to Accra was heart-rending but not exceptional.

She spoke as The Lancet described the removal of Ms Sumani as atrocious barbarism. “To stop treating patients in the knowledge that they are being sent home to die is an unacceptable breach of the duties of any health professional,” it said. “The UK has committed an atrocious barbarism. It is time for doctors’ leaders to say so, forcefully and uncompromisingly.”

Ms Sumani, 39, suffers from malignant myeloma and was receiving dialysis at a hospital in Cardiff when she was taken by immigration officers and flown back home last week because her visa had expired. She left the hospital in a wheelchair accompanied by five immigration officials before being driven to Heathrow to board a flight to Accra last Wednesday.

Keith Vaz, the chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, said that he had spoken by telephone to Ms Sumani in her Accra hospital shortly before a hearing of the committee — at which he told Ms Homer, the chief executive of the Border and Immigration Agency: “Her health has deteriorated since she arrived in Ghana.”

Ms Homer said: “I think it is very difficult to see the circumstances in which this case stands out from the very many difficult cases we consider. These are incredibly difficult cases. There are many hundreds each year.”

She added: “We deal with many hundreds of cases where the personal circumstances reach and touch the people involved. It is one of the things that makes being a caseworker in the agency a difficult job.”

Ms Sumani came to England as a student in 2004. It is not believed that cancer had been diagnosed at that time. Her lack of English prevented her from taking up the course and she then sought work, which broke the rules of her student visa. She did not keep in touch with the immigration authorities and was taken ill a year ago.

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