The Home Office is so concerned about the health of a man who faces removal from the UK this Monday that four medics will accompany him on the flight in case he has a stroke.

Sangarapillai Balachandran, 60, a Sri Lankan Tamil with Australian citizenship, is due to be flown to Australia with his wife and three children. He has had three increasingly serious strokes over six years. He says that all three occurred during periods of stress in his dealings with the Home Office over his family’s immigration case.

Balachandran, who fears he could die on the flight, takes medication for high blood pressure. When his blood pressure was taken a few days ago to assess his fitness to fly it was 160 over 105 – normal blood pressure range from 120/80 to 140/90. A neurologist who treated Balachandran after his third stroke said it was likely to have been caused by “a combination of hypertension and ethnic factors”.

The family has twice agreed to return to Australia in the last year but both times were unable to go because Balachandran was unfit to fly. The most recent was in February, when he was taken off the plane because he became unwell and after the family told the flight crew about the three strokes. He was taken to hospital and treated overnight to lower his blood pressure.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sangarapillai Balachandran. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

It is understood that the Home Office insists he is fit to fly on this occasion after an independent medical assessment. But the family say the Home Office has informed them that four medics will accompany him on Monday’s flight because of his health problems. Long flights can heighten the risk of strokes, especially for people who have high blood pressure. The family are hoping they will be granted a last reprieve so they can remain in the UK.

Balachandran’s son, Pranavan, 23, said: “Monday is just falling off a cliff for all of us.”

The charity Medical Justice, which works to protect the health of immigration detainees, said it encountered up to three cases a month of the Home Office proceeding to remove people deemed medically unfit to fly.

Balachandran is a highly specialised engineer with expertise in water purification systems. He was headhunted by a British company in 2007 to come and work for it because there was a shortage of civil engineers with his particular skills at the time. His family had moved from Sri Lanka to Australia a decade before as part of a migrant recruitment programme and all had been granted citizenship there.

His family no longer has permission to work since his work visa expired and the Home Office refused them indefinite leave to remain.

Balachandran’s oldest daughter, Karthika, 30, has learning disabilities and is a voluntary administrator at St George’s hospital, where she has worked for the past seven years.

His youngest daughter, Sinthuja, 28, gained a first in economics at Queen Mary University and passed the civil service fast-stream exams. She was accepted for a job in the civil service dependent on resolving her immigration status. A letter seen by the Guardian from the government economics service said the government was struggling to recruit enough economists and that she was “recognised as having valuable technical skills as an economist and in wider analysis”.

She said: “I have had to try extra hard to reach the same level as other people because I’m partially deaf but I was determined no to let that hold me back. Now all that is going to waste. The Home Office is just a government department. I thought the government is supposed to be for the people.

Q&A What are enforced departures? Show Hide There are three layers of state-enforced or enforceable departures of immigrants from the UK: deportations, administrative removals and voluntary departures. Deportations apply to people and their children whose removal is deemed 'conducive to the public good' by the home secretary. They can also be recommended by a court.

Administrative removals refer to cases involving the enforced removal of non-citizens who have either entered the country illegally, outstayed a visa, or violated the conditions of their leave to remain. Voluntary departures are people against whom enforced removal has been initiated; the term 'voluntary' simply describes how they leave. There are three sub-categories: a) Those who depart via assisted voluntary return schemes.

b) Those who make their own travel arrangements and tell the authorities. c) Those who leave without notifying the government.

“We have struggled with the Home Office for five years but now we’ve come to the end of the road. When I hear the words ‘Home Office’ I get scared. My primary concern is to protect my parents and my siblings. If anything happens to my dad on Monday’s flight we will all be crushed.”

She added that feared that if the family refused to get on the plane on Monday the Home Office may deport everyone except her father.

Her brother was accepted to do a degree in computer science at her alma mater but was unable to take up the place because of his immigration status.

The family’s immigration problems started when they applied for leave to remain in 2012. They were refused but subsequently won an appeal in July 2013, when the judge ordered the Home Office to reconsider the case. Officials then failed to write to the family for almost a year.

In a letter to the family’s solicitors dated 4 July 2014, a Home Office official wrote: “It has come to my attention that indefinite leave to remain refusals of the above applications were not dispatched to your clients at the time they were refused and therefore they were not aware of the need to make an appeal. I apologise for the confusion.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Balachandrans with their children, Karthika - who volunteers at a hospital, Pranavan, who could not accept his university place, and Sinthuja, who has a job offer depending on her immigration status. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

Further court action was taken and but ultimately the case was refused in February of last year. The family has been granted exceptional case funding by the Legal Aid Agency to pursue a human rights claim, but said they had run out of time because the Home Office has booked them on Monday’s flight.

The Home Office had not been actively pursuing the family, but they became homeless and destitute having used up all their savings which they have been living on since being denied the right to work.

The family spent a night sleeping at a Heathrow terminal but realised that with the father’s health problems and the two daughters’ disabilities it was not a sustainable solution. In desperation they approached the Home Office and asked to be locked up in detention as an alternative to being on the streets.

“The Home Office told us that our father was too unwell to be detained and agreed to put us up in a budget hotel next to the detention centre on condition that we signed papers to return voluntarily to Australia on Monday evening,” said Sinthuja. “We felt we had no choice but to sign as we cannot survive on the streets. But if we get on the plane our father might die.”

Karthika said she felt the Home Office was treating the family “like criminals” although they had never done anything wrong.

“We have always been very respectful, good citizens,” said her mother Shanthy, 53. “I never wanted to see my children suffer like this.”

Theresa Schleicher of Medical Justice said: “We are concerned about the number of times the Home Office has attempted to remove from the UK seriously ill immigration detainees who our volunteer doctors have assessed as being unfit to fly. As well as endangering the health of the detainee, in some cases this also puts at risk the safety of the airline crew and passengers on the flight.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Balachandran family have exhausted their leave to remain status in the UK and have agreed to return to Australia voluntarily.”



