“If he had had a chance to go into therapy, now maybe would still be alive“. And, instead, the 29-year-old originally from Ghana Seth Dekyi who, for years, has lived in Palazzolo Acreide (in the province of Syracuse), he died while he was hospitalized in Noto hospital. «Now, at least – he says to MeridioNews Lidia Rizzarelli, the cultural mediator who has followed him since his arrival in Italy – we want to know what were the causes of his death“. The young man had one congenital heart malformation it’s a pacemaker which, for about three years, had been giving obvious problems even with acoustic signals of malfunction. “We never got the medical records – the lawyer Giulia Licitra denounces – The latest in our possession is an ultrasound of the heart that dates back to 2014 to which a therapeutic plan is also attached “. Health problems that are intertwined with those for practices for the residency permit after the loss of the right to humanitarian protection.
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“If he had had a chance to go into therapy, now maybe would still be alive“. And, instead, the 29-year-old originally from Ghana Seth Dekyi who, for years, has lived in Palazzolo Acreide (in the province of Syracuse), he died while he was hospitalized in Noto hospital. «Now, at least – he says to MeridioNews Lidia Rizzarelli, the cultural mediator who has followed him since his arrival in Italy – we want to know what were the causes of his death“. The young man had one congenital heart malformation it’s a pacemaker which, for about three years, had been giving obvious problems even with acoustic signals of malfunction. “We never got the medical records – the lawyer Giulia Licitra denounces – The latest in our possession is an ultrasound of the heart that dates back to 2014 to which a therapeutic plan is also attached “. Health problems that are intertwined with those for practices for the residency permit after the loss of the right to humanitarian protection.
It is June of 2011 when Seth lands in Pozzallo, in the Ragusa area. He immediately requests international protection and is housed in a community for asylum seekers. In April 2012 he was denied by the territorial commission of Syracuse. In November of the same year, the young man asked the Arezzo police headquarters to reopen the procedure for obtaining recognized refugee status. So he was issued a residence permit for serious humanitarian reasons because, despite being a native of Ghana, comes from Libya where for a long time he had lived and worked. The young person remains the holder of the residence permit for one year. Then, only nearly five years later a new practice is opened for the issue of the document that however, it remains pending because in March of 2018 the boy he gets arrested by the Carabinieri of Noto for injuries personal, threat e abuse in the family. In particular, towards his partner, a Nigerian woman who is 17 years older than him.
For Dekyi comes first the ban on approaching the places frequented by her partner and then there two-year prison sentence with conditional suspension of the sentence. The story ends with a plea bargain. According to what has been reconstructed, “during a dispute – Licitra reconstructs – Seth threw a piece of furniture, a figurine, and unfortunately hit his partner in the head“. After this episode, it is defined a “socially dangerous subject”, the territorial commission gives an opinion against the renewal of the residence permit and, that same day, the expulsion decree. “In Palazzolo we knew him many and no one would ever have described him like that – says the lawyer – It was an isolated episode that paid for with his life. The partner who signed the complaint, without knowing Italian and in the absence of a mediator – notes the lawyer – the next day he would have liked to withdraw it».
His assessment of the residence permit could have weighed on him health conditions. But the latest medical documentation dates back to 2015. “It is assumed that in the following years, and until today, enjoyed good health, not having recourse to further documented medical treatment. Therefore – reads the expulsion document – it is believed that the necessary treatment for his can continue cardiopathic status even in the country of origin “. And the appeal presented by the lawyer in April 2019 in which it is pointed out that Seth “is seriously ill, has hypertension with severe heart problems and has a pacemaker. Since the last medical examination at the Umberto I hospital in Syracuse, a pacemaker malfunction with the need for continuous therapy which, to this day, he is unable to follow ».
Even because, without Seth residence permit, he also loses his job in the catering of a well-known restaurant. The response from the Immigration area of the prefecture of Syracuse is not long in coming: “They remain excluded (from the area of constitutional obligations in the field of health, ed) those maintenance and control treatments that, even if necessary to ensure a life expectancy for the patient, they escape from the urgent and urgent medical intervention“. What the lawyer is asking today is: “How come the cardiologist who was treating him never issued a Stp?”, Or a code of Foreigner temporarily present. A tool that allows the application of the right to health care also to non-European citizens irregularly present on the territory.
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