A Nigerian woman, who went into labour mid-flight from Chicago to London and was taken to the Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in West London where she gave birth to quadruplets, is owing the hospital more than £500,000 (N192,596,900) as cost of the complexbirth and care of the babies.
In the UK, the cost of treating a baby in neonatal intensive care is estimated at £20,000 (N7.7 million) per week.
According to the Daily Mail, the 43-year-old woman, simply identified as Priscilla, was six months pregnant after undergoing IVF treatment, and had intended to give birth in Chicago, in the US, where she has family: she was turned away by border officials upon arrival, when she failed to show evidence that she could pay for her medical care.
Priscilla, a healthcare worker, who hails from Lagos, currently stays at a hostel run by a charity and is unable to afford the bill. She admitted she did not plan to give birth in London, and was travelling back to Nigeria via Heathrow, when she went into labour.
She told the hospital that there is no way she can pay the money back, even if she worked every day for the rest of her life.
Her husband, who is in Nigeria, cannot join her in Britain to help take care of her as he does not have enough money for a visa or the flight.
Two survived
One of the babies died SHORTLY after birth while another, a girl named Deborah, passed away weekend. The other two, Elijah and Esther, are still being treated on the hospital’s neonatal intensive care ward.
Priscilla underwent IVF treatment, which has a high risk of multiple births, as she was struggling to conceive NATURALLY due to her age. She was told by her doctor to fly to the US to have her babies, as Nigerian hospitals do not have the ‘facilities to cater for the children.’
When first warned of the high treatment costs by overseas visitor manager, Priscilla replied: “I didn’t plan to come here. It’s only money. Money can’t buy life. The last bill I had was £331,000 but – even if I worked every day – I would never earn that much money. My kids are priceless.”
The case was featured on the BBC2 programme Hospital, screened in the UK, showing the effect of so-called “health tourism,” that involves treatment of people from outside the UK on the National Health System, NHS. Health tourism is estimated to cost the NHS more than £280 million (N107 trillion) each year.
Another Nigerian mother
Another Nigerian mother owes £350,000 after she had flown to Britain to give birth to twins. The woman, who was unidentified, had a caesarean at Luton and Dunstable University Hospital, after she was transferred there from another due to pregnancy complications.
Her twins then spent two months in intensive care.
The case was uncovered through a series of freedom of information requests, sent by the Daily Mail to all hospitals in England.
A spokesman confirmed that the hospital was owed £348,683 by the mother, who gave birth in 2015.
Luton is one of just three paediatric intensive care units in the East of England, and the trust said it could not refuse treatment “if there was a danger to life.”
The responses from 90 hospitals revealed that 13,077 overseas patients were treated in the UK in 2015/16, including 3,066 pregnant women, who flew in and had babies.
Findings showed that a significant number of women involved in the “health tourism,” come from Nigeria.
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Your Comment have been submited and will be Visible after Approval