NHS consultant and daughter, 11, may be forced to leave UK in Home Office visa row

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1. An NHS paediatrician whose medic husband died during the pandemic could be forced to leave the UK with her daughter due to a row with the Home Office over a visa for her elderly mother.

   Dr Liza Harry and Katelyn, 11, were left devastated when Dr Shree Vishna Rasiah, a neonatologist at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital – known as Vish – died on 23 April 2020 after contracting Covid-19. He was one of the first medics to die in the pandemic.

   Dr Harry’s mother, Zohora, arrived from Trinidad in June that year on a six-month visiting visa. However, she wanted to be able to stay indefinitely to support her daughter and be, in effect, a co-parent to Katelyn. Officials initially rejected the indefinite leave to remain visa application, but following **i**‘s publication of her story three years ago the Home Office promised to expedite the case and Mrs Harry received a grant of leave for 30 months on compassionate grounds.

   Mrs Harry, 76, applied for a visa extension in October 2023, as she continues to provide vital emotional support to her granddaughter and daughter, allowing Dr Harry – a consultant paediatrician – to return to work.

   In a letter to then Home Secretary Suella Braverman in support of the application, a senior colleague of Dr Harry’s at Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust said: “Liza is a key part of paediatric and neonatal medical teams; she is valued and respected by colleagues and patients alike.

   “Our ask is simple: allow Liza’s mother, who is a Commonwealth citizen, to continue to stay in the UK to help support Liza and Katelyn. This will enable Liza to continue to work at our hospital where her skills and compassion are greatly needed – now more than ever as we try to recover services following the pandemic.”
   However, the Home Office denied the extension in January. The family took legal action, but a judge at the First-Tier Tribunal has now backed the refusal – despite evidence read out in court from Dr Harry’s trust and Katelyn’s school stating how important Mrs Harry’s presence has been for the family.

   “I thought the decision would be a formality and allow me to resume full-time and out of hours duties at my hospital,” Dr Harry, 53, told **i**.

   “So the rejection was a shock, very unexpected. We felt the Home Office had misunderstood the situation because they granted it on compassionate grounds first time around, so we thought they would look at the entire case again and give the extension on the same grounds.

   “At the tribunal, we put in more evidence from my hospital saying they want me to do more out of hours work to help recover services from the pandemic and improve waiting lists. But they didn’t seem to pay any attention to that and said mum has not satisfied the immigration rules and therefore denied the application.”

   Katelyn’s deputy headteacher wrote: “Without the support of her grandmother I do think there would have been many key events that Katelyn would have been involved with, where she would have had no one in the audience for her, no one to tell her Mum how well she had done and no one there giving her the confidence to get up and do her best.”

   Following the decision, Dr Harry said she will have to consider her future in UK if all further legal options fail.

   “If my mother had to leave, I don’t think Katelyn and I would be able to manage on our own emotionally. We’d feel very isolated. We have friends and colleagues around who have been extremely supportive and we are very grateful for this. But at the end of the day, it’s not the same as having a family member physically here.

   “My mother is a widow, and so in many ways we support her as much as she supports us. We are a strong family unit: that’s the hand we’ve been dealt and this is the best solution for us. The three of us together.

   “If mum had to leave, I’d have no choice but to think seriously about relocating all of us, so we could continue to be together and support each other. However, my trust needs me and I would like to continue working here where I have been in my post for the last 14 years and Katelyn would like to continue to live in the house where we have many memories of her father and continue at her school with her friends and teachers. Considering what we have been through, I don’t think this is too much to ask.”