![\"Niaomi](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_BHR_LEC_030426_NIAOMI1jpeg.jpg\")
<\/p>\nNiaomi Baker travelled to Tunisia two months ago but is yet to return home<\/p>\n
19:48, 08 Apr 2026Updated 19:52, 08 Apr 2026<\/p>\n
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Niaomi Baker, 33, is currently in hospital in Tunisia after a medical episode <\/p>\n
A woman “won’t wake up properly” after suffering a medical episode in Tunisia, her cousin said. Niaomi Baker, from Kirkby, had boarded her flight back to the UK on February 11 following a week-long holiday.<\/p>\n
However, she suddenly fell ill and the 33-year-old was rushed to hospital in the north African country and placed in an induced coma. Her cousin, Laylla Baker, said Niaomi remains bedbound close to two months on following the medical episode.<\/p>\n
The ECHO <\/a>previously covered Niaomi’s situation as she remains in Tunisia<\/a> as her family desperately tried to bring her home by raising money, with Niaomi not travelling with insurance. Laylla said her cousin went abroad without their family’s knowledge, travelling to the country with a friend and without travel insurance despite having several medical conditions.<\/p>\n Laylla, a mum-of-one and also from Kirkby<\/a>, explained how Niaomi has autism, functional neurological disorder (FND) and additional needs, which means Niaomi has the mental ability of a child. As well as this, Niaomi has epilepsy which was diagnosed when she was a child.<\/p>\n Niaomi Baker travelled on holiday without her family knowing<\/p>\n Despite this, Laylla, who is Niaomi’s next-of-kin, was unaware of her cousin’s trip until she received the phone call from one of her carers on February 15 – four days after she was placed in a coma.<\/p>\n In an update, Laylla said: “They woke her up three weeks ago and she isn’t waking up properly. She’s just opening her eyes from time-to-time.”<\/p>\n She added: “There’s still no chance with Niaomi. We’re just hoping to raise the funds to get her back home and in the Walton<\/a> Centre where she needs to be.”<\/p>\n The 34-year-old previously said: “I found out on the Sunday, it wasn’t straight away. My heart just sunk, I had no words. I felt guilty, I felt like I had to be the one that has to be responsible.<\/p>\n “If I’d had known she was going, I could have made sure she had everything in place to go, her insurance and everything. It’s just horrible. I just felt numb, I can’t even tell you what I felt because it was just horrible.<\/p>\n “She’s 33, she’s vulnerable, she’s in a strange country alone. She has no one to talk to her to help her wake up.<\/p>\n “You don’t expect to get that phone call to say something has happened to one of your family members, especially abroad.<\/p>\n “You see it all the time on the ECHO and social media but you never expect it to happen to one of your own and when it does it just becomes so real. It’s so scary.”<\/p>\n Laylla told the ECHO how she is unable to fly to the country to see her cousin due to being recently diagnosed with a grade two astrocytoma – a type of brain tumour – and unable to afford the travel insurance to see her. She explained how Niaomi is without close family members following the death of her mum, Karen, two years ago, and her dad being in a nursing home.<\/p>\n Niaomi’s cousin is now trying to raise funds to get her home<\/p>\n Following the death of her mum, Niaomi was placed in an induced coma after a diagnosis of FND, suffering as many as 96 seizures in a day, her cousin said. She recovered but now faces “history repeating itself”.<\/p>\n Niaomi has since been brought out of her coma but has not regained full consciousness. Contact between the family and the medical team at the hospital is limited, according to Laylla, but it has been recommended she is transported to the UK for further treatment.<\/p>\n![\"Niaomi](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_BHR_LEC_030426_NIAOMI3jpeg.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Niaomi's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/0_BHR_LEC_030426_NIAOMI2jpeg.jpg\")
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