Join the Justice for Omisha campaign and Patients Not Passports on Saturday 13th July to find out about Omisha’s story and learn how the campaign is building people power in East London to end migrant healthcare charging.

Omisha was 10 months old when she was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer - she needed a liver transplant and chemotherapy. The NHS saved her life. But she was sent a £76,000 bill for her treatment because of her immigration status. Omisha’s family and East London community have been fighting to cancel this debt, to end the hostile immigration system that charged her, and make the NHS free for all who need it.

At this free public meeting, we will hear from Omisha’s family, health workers, and local campaigners, launch the new Patients Not Passports toolkit, share expertise and practical tools for resistance, and discuss how together we can build an NHS for all. You will learn about hostile immigration policies in the NHS and how charging migrants for NHS treatment impacts individuals and families in East London - particularly by Barking, Havering & Redbridge NHS Trust and Barts Trust. We will discuss how we can work together to challenge NHS debts and the use of debt collectors at local hospitals, and how our communities can resist together.

There will be food and a creche too!

This event is co-hosted by the Justice for Omisha campaign, Migrants Organise, Medact, Waltham Forest Save Our NHS, Newham Save Our NHS, Tower Hamlets Keep Our NHS Public, Hackney Keep Our NHS Public, the Women's Branch of Leyton & Wanstead CLP and RAMFEL.

Speakers include...

Reeja Shrestha: Reeja is mum to Shreeya and Omisha. She co-founded the Justice for Omisha campaign in 2022 after Omisha was charged with a huge NHS bill of £76,000 by their local hospital. With her family, friends and community in East London, Reeja is leading the Justice for Omisha campaign to demand an end to her family’s NHS charges, the end to the use of debt collectors in healthcare, an end to the hostile environment for all migrants and refugees, and an NHS that is truly free for all.

Dr Kitty Worthing: Kitty is a medical doctor who started organising against borders in the NHS in 2017 as part of Docs Not Cops, which later became the Patients Not Passports campaign. At the time she was working across East London and involved in workplace organising against charging in Barts Health. She now organises with Patients Not Passports and Solidarity Knows No Borders Merseyside.

Nick Beales: Nick is the Head of Campaigning at the Refugee and Migrant Forum Of Essex & London (RAMFEL). He has worked in the immigration sector for over a decade, both as a caseworker and  now developing strategies and legal challenges to combat the hostile environment.

Terry Day: Terry has been chair of Waltham Forest Save Our NHS since 2017 and has been very active in campaigning against the hostile environment in the NHS for all those years. She’s been “semi-retired” since 2017, working part-time for Age UK Waltham Forest. Before that she worked for many years in large organisations, driving change around equality, including being Equality Champion at London Underground and Head of Equality at Manchester City Council. She started her working life as a speech and language therapist. She has 8 grandchildren and 1 great-granddaughter.

Aliya Yule: Aliya is the Access to Healthcare Organiser at Migrants Organise, where her work focuses on the Patients Not Passports campaign. She works with migrant communities and healthcare workers to build opposition to bordering policies in the NHS.

Sign Omisha’s petition here: https://change.org/justiceforomisha