A man who returned to Fiji after being threatened with deportation if he did not return voluntarily has died from kidney failure, Labour MP Rajen Prasad says, Radio New Zealand reports.
Sanil Kumar, 30, who had kidney failure, had said he would have to pay triple the amount for dialysis in Fiji that he had been receiving in New Zealand, and if he was sent back he would die.
But he returned to Fiji because he was told that, should he be deported, he would not be able to return to New Zealand for future treatment.
Associate Immigration Minister Nikki Kaye refused to intervene in Kumar's case and he died in Fiji on Monday morning, after being deported in April.
Prasad, who had been advocating for Kumar, said his family had raised most of the $130,000 needed for the treatment, and he had a donor in New Zealand.
Associate Immigration Minister Nikki Kaye refused to intervene in Kumar's case but Prasad said it would have done no harm to this country to let him have his transplant here, and that the immigration system was utterly heartless.
"My personal response is one of great sadness, that we weren't able to be generous enough and compassionate enough to enable this young man to go through his treatment here before returning to Fiji," Prasad said.
"We realised the risks of sending him to an uncertain environment, and unfortunately those risks have been realised in the worst manner possible."