Doctor thwarted in bid to aid Ukrainian minors
AWEST Country doctor trying to bring two Ukrainian teenagers into the UK has said it is a “national scandal” that she has so far been thwarted,
Dr Catherine Hillman, a consultant obstetrician at Worcestershire Royal Hospital who lives in north Gloucestershire, is attempting to bring two teenagers, whose mothers cannot leave Kyiv because they are medical professionals, to the UK.
She helped to secure bursary places for the children, 14-yearold Ivan and 15-year-old Daria, at Cheltenham College, while her parents have signed up to act as guardians for the pair.
But despite having all the paperwork completed, including written consent from the children’s parents, and submitting the visa request on April 12 – the date the guidance on gov.uk was updated, evidenced by older versions of the web page on the Wayback Machine internet archive – they are still waiting to hear back.
“We applied for their visas what feels like 300 years ago and still have not received anything,” Dr Hillman, 45, said.
“We’ve just had the most appalling difficulty. I mean, it’s been smoke and mirrors, we’ve no idea what the truth of the matter is.”
Dr Hillman, pictured, said she has written to “everyone I can think of including Lord Harrington”, but to no avail.
A Government spokesperson cited “safeguarding concerns” as the reason unaccompanied minors are not being approved for the scheme.
But Mala Savjani, an immigration solicitor for the charity Here For Good, said: “You’ve got unaccompanied children who are alone, stuck in different cities and towns across Europe, who are not with their parents, and in some cases have been separated from their friends.
“They have very limited funds available to them.
“But they’ve been offered a safe home to live in, in the UK, which has been checked by the local authorities, and the sponsor has had a DBS check completed.
“It’s a bit of a contradiction to say it’s a safeguarding issue, isn’t it?”
Here For Good, which was set up to provide free immigration advice to vulnerable EU citizens in the UK post-Brexit, has been helping with applications from Ukrainian
citizens since the invasion began.
Ms Savjani said the Ukraine system is functioning similarly to other cases she has worked on in that it is “a system that works for some and not for others, with limited transparency”.
Dr Hillman said the Government has a “moral imperative to address this issue” and believes it is a “national scandal” that it has not done so.
She said: “They’re just placing roadblocks all the way along with an inconsistency of message as to how you should approach this problem, what you should do.
“And without any clarity you are left floundering, having promised people that you would be able to help them when they are in the very worst of circumstances.
“And personally, if that was my child, I would be appalled to be on the receiving end of such a ‘welcome’.”
According to Ms Savjani, the Government has paused visa applications for unaccompanied minors fleeing Ukraine because it still has not decided how to deal with such applications.
Current Government advice for the Homes For Ukraine scheme states that under-18s “must be applying as part of a family unit which includes their parent or legal guardian” to be eligible.
But this guidance did not appear on the gov.uk website until the middle of April, some weeks after the scheme went live on March 18.