Windrush: Man promised help by government after being told to pay for cancer treatment 'unclear on future'
Patient says he still has no clarity after only a brief call from hospital
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Your support makes all the difference.A prostate cancer patient promised he would get the treatment he needs by the prime minister in the midst of the Windrush scandal has said he is still uncertain about whether he will be offered help.
Albert Thompson - not his real name - was told he had to pay £54,000 to have radiotherapy if he could not prove he was in the country legally, despite having lived in the UK for 44 years.
Theresa May assured MPs he would be "be receiving the treatment he needs" when his case was raised by Jeremy Corbyn at Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday.
But Mr Thompson says he still has no clarity about his treatment, having received only a brief phone call from the Royal Marsden Hospital, in west London, on Wednesday night.
"The Prime Minister said I would get treatment, so I presume it is true, but I won't believe it until I get the go-ahead for the treatment," he told The Guardian.
Mr Thompson's case has been widely publicised despite the fact he is not technically part of the so-called "Windrush generation" because he arrived in the UK after the Immigration Act came into force.
His lawyer Jeremy Bloom described Mr Thompson's treatment as "grossly unfair", saying: "Nothing that the hospital have said since the PM's announcement has clarified whether or when he will be receiving the radiotherapy treatment that he requires."
A Royal Marsden hospital spokesman told the paper: "Mr Thompson's cancer specialist is arranging for Mr Thompson to come into the clinic for the next stage of his NHS treatment."
PA
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