Obama's stepmother: The NHS saved my life

THE STEPMOTHER of America’s President Barack Obama said last night she owed her life to the NHS.

HEALTHCARE PLANS Barack Obama HEALTHCARE PLANS: Barack Obama

British doctors and nurses saved 66-year-old Kezia Obama when she suffered chronic kidney failure seven years ago.

But Kezia, who lives in Bracknell, Berkshire, insisted she would never have been able to afford healthcare if she had been in America at the time.

She told a newspaper: “It’s very simple: I owe my life to the NHS. If it wasn’t for the NHS I wouldn’t have been alive to see our family’s greatest moment, when Barack became President.”

She spoke out after Republicans branded the NHS “evil” and “Orwellian” amid a major row over Mr Obama’s plans for US healthcare reform.

Ms Obama said: “Luckily I was here in Britain, in what was then a foreign country to me, where the doctors, nurses and surgeons cared for me like I was their own child.”

Five years ago she had two hip replacement operations, without which she would now be confined to a wheelchair.

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