Children’s doctor threatens to leave NHS amid mother’s visa row

Dr Harry’s husband Dr Shree Vishna Rasiah, 48, a leading neonatologist at Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital, was one of the first doctors to die after catching Covid on duty during the pandemic.

Two months later, her mother Zohora, a 76-year-old widow, arrived to help look after her granddaughter and offer support.

Dr Harry works at the Worcestershire Royal Hospital and said she needed the childcare when she was away from home, especially on night shifts.

She said she had no other family in the UK and did not want to leave her daughter with a stranger.

Zohora said: “When I heard the possibility that I may go back home, not being able to support her [her granddaughter] and by extension her mum, it made me very sad, very emotional. It broke my heart.”

When she applied for a visa extension in October, the family thought that it would be a formality, but the Home Office rejected it.

A first tier tribunal, which heard the appeal, also ruled against the family, saying Zohora had failed to show there were exceptional or compelling circumstances that her absence would have a significant impact on her granddaughter.