Double amputation for homeless woman

A destitute migrant worker had both legs amputated after being found suffering frostbite on the streets of Northern Ireland, it was revealed tonight.

She had been sleeping rough in sub-zero temperatures when an ambulance crew rushed her to hospital to be treated for hypothermia, shocked medical staff disclosed.

Later the victim, aged 23 from the Ukraine, underwent a critical emergency operation at the City Hospital in Belfast.

One source said: “She is so utterly shellshocked that she’s completely closed down.”

East Derry MP Gregory Campbell has demanded a full inquiry.

Patrick Yu, director of the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities, claimed fear and isolation would compound her agony.

“This woman would have no family or local community to fall back on.

“Eastern European countries don’t have any support networks of their own in Northern Ireland.”

Trauma counsellors have been brought in to help her deal with the situation.

Interpreters are also communicating with the depressed and withdrawn woman in an attempt to find out more about her harrowing ordeal.

She was picked up in Coleraine, Co Derry on New Year’s Day – a week after losing contact with Polish friends.

A police probe was also ordered to check any possible exploitation of foreign workers by criminals.

Specialists have been shielding her as she tries to come to terms with the double amputation, but today detectives received clearance to interview her.

They attempted to piece together her movements over the past two months.

It is understood she had been living in the open air close to vacant houses since being laid off by a meat processing firm just before Christmas.

Only once the freezing conditions became unbearable did she seek help from other immigrants she knew in the area.

They immediately called for medical help and she was taken to the Causeway Hospital in Coleraine before being transferred to Belfast where surgeons amputated both legs.

Social services are trying to make contact with a number of Polish people they believe shared accommodation with the woman in Ballymoney, Co Antrim until they were all made redundant.

Employment records for the woman, whose permit does not expire until later this year, only cover the period up to the end of October.

The terrified woman speaks no English, but Joan Ruddock, head of the City Hospital Trust and fluent in Russian, has kept a bedside vigil.

“That was a godsend in these circumstances,” one staff member said.

Despite her psychological turmoil, the woman is understood to have disclosed details on her family back in the Ukraine.

They do not have a telephone, but a letter has been sent to her mother in the aftermath of her operation.

Thousands of migrant workers from across Europe and Africa have moved to Northern Ireland in search of work.

Many have secured low-paid jobs in the food manufacturing industry where firms have struggled to recruit locally.

Mr Campbell, the Democratic Unionist MP for East Derry, was horrified by the Ukrainian woman’s heartbreaking ordeal and demanded a full inquiry.

He said: “It sounds like the ultimate individual tragedy of a young person far away from her own home and left on the streets in wintry conditions.

“This is a case that has to be fully investigated by social services.

“If the extreme cold has led to the double amputation that is all the more reason that the circumstances are thoroughly examined.”

Dr Ken Fullerton, Medical Director at the City Hospital, refused to give any detail on the woman.

He said: “We appreciate the public interest in this situation. However, our first duty is to our patient.

“It is the policy of the Trust never to comment on individual cases without the patient’s consent.”