Baby dies in childbirth. Parents not allowed to take body home.

Punishing the baby for the mistakes of the parents is wildly unethical

This is a nonsense statement, the baby is deceased and cannot be punished.

If the true story is to do with repatriation, the NHS can’t just hand a body over without the a plan and paperwork confirming that plan surely? The parents best solution would be as PP suggested, a service in the UK and a cremation, taking the ashes home. When we lost our baby we were surprised to find that the funeral home offered an almost free burial/cremation, we didn’t realise until about the 4th/5th we visited and actually asked about costs.

just as possible a story as the parents being healthcare "tourists"

There's really no reason for someone in Western Europe to go to the UK to give birth as a 'health care tourist'. It simply makes no sense.

Travelling without insurance is stupid but in health care terms it's neither here nor there if you're eligible for an EHIC card. Again stupid not to have one, but if you failed to get your shit together before travelling it doesn't mean that you have to pay out of pocket and that's it.

Where I live we occasionally have people come over on a holiday, take drugs, die, and then their poor parents/families/friends sometimes need to crowdfund to repatriate their bodies. That's what you'd better have travel insurance for. Obviously out of respect I'm not going to link but one tragic case was widely reported because it involved two people at once.

It's telling that people are only seeing this in terms of finance and not humanity.

Isn't it just?

Neither article mentions repatriation though, it’s just about releasing the baby’s body in a bassinet. So it is about the cost of the woman’s treatment not about the potential cost of repatriation.

Mayday it's still repatriation though, and still requires a huge amount of paperwork and associated costs (you can't even cross a county boundary without incurring costs and paperwork).

I would put money in this being far more of an issue than the cost of the care the woman received.

If you were overseas they will have billed you - there's British people stuck in hospitals not allowed to leave until they pay

I had a distant family member who died abroad. They wouldn't release the body until they had confirmation from insurance company that they'd be paid.
It took about a week for it all to be confirmed- we were told that without that confirmation, we wouldn't have been able to repatriate the body.

Get travel insurance.

MyDC you seem to agree with the action taken in keeping the body of the baby, is that right?
No of course not, I just think having no insurance if holidaying at 8 months pregnant is extremely irresponsible.

I could drive from London to several European capitals as quickly as I could drive to the capital of Scotland. I don't know if legal but I would be tempted to do it to bring my baby home. Some undertakers offer reduced cost services for stillborn or neo natal deaths. The hospital itself would have a chapel and the ability to cremate the baby, returning the ashes to the parents.
After the baby ashes scandal in Scotland I am less trusting of the hospital "doing the right thing" than I would have been before.
And I think the finance people at the hospital being grabbing and unkind is just as possible a story as the parents being healthcare "tourists".

I used to work for an undertaker, and the cost of repatriating a body ran into thousands. And presumably this couple didn't have insurance and wanted the NHS to pay.

There is always a story in between the lines. You can't judge until you've heard the full version.

But nhs tourists come here to get free health care while they’re here eg an operation or lengthy treatment for a known condition while on a work visa, which takes planning, but I still don’t understand how this woman was an nhs tourist as no one would choose for any of that to happen to them even if it were for free.

Mayday Repatriation might not be essential but funerals aren't cheap in this country either.

Driving the baby home is hardly possible though!

DpWm Wed 10-Jul-19 12:46:12
You'd expect this sort of thing in America,. Not here. Fucking Tory government.

I heard of a case (one of many similar) in America where a British couple had a premature baby but the ICU would have cost them £1million. They had to find a million quid or let the baby die.
Right wing capitalist ideology. Thanks

Some parts of america are 'aborting' babies after birth so i'm not surprised.

I wonder why the baby died, the UK has got a shocking stillbirth rate. If I felt there were inadequacies in the care I recieved then I would refuse to pay a penny even if I could. I bet there was no investigation into the circumstances of the baby's death before the parents were billed.

It's telling that people are only seeing this in terms of finance and not humanity

I'm doubting the veracity of the story.

I agree with badcat
This is horrible and I feel for those parents but travelling abroad with no insurance and no means to pay for healthcare when you are not entitled to it for free is irresponsible, especially if pregnant.
Nobody deserves this outcome but it is partly the parents fault

@Imnobody4 I would have a close look at what happens in other countries.... in many places (even in the EU) you wouldn't even be admitted to hospital without being charged or proving you could pay.

No, summer the parents travelled without insurance. Not the baby. Punishing the baby for the mistakes of the parents is wildly unethical.

Repatriation isn't essential. You could arrange for a religious service in a church from your home faith for example, or to have the baby cremated here. They could have driven the baby home even - not ideal, but what about this situation is?
I am sure with the benefit of hindsight they wish they had handled things differently. I'm sure most of their tears are reserved for the lost child though not the bill, but it does rub salt into the wounds. Of all the unnecessary things the nhs pays for, returning a baby to its grieving parents would hardly be the worst, would it?

If the NHS waived their costs out of the kindness of their little hearts where was the body being released to? And how was that body getting back to it's parents home country?

Surely it's more likely that there were no proper arrangements in place for proper storage and repatriation. So the only thing the hospital can do is keep the baby. Until suitable arrangements are made.

The story doesn't make sense. The Dr says that usually the baby is presented in a basinet for the parents to take home prior to burial and it was this that was refused in this case. But how could the parents take the baby home unless they could pay to have the body repatriated? That would be down to them to pay for undertakers to repatriate the body, not the NHS so what is missing from this story?

but it does have quotes from the doctor involved in the case,

That article reads like Dr Rylands was working at the hospital when it (allegedly) happened not that he was actually involved.

I heard of a case (one of many similar) in America where a British couple had a premature baby but the ICU would have cost them £1million. They had to find a million quid or let the baby die.

They chose to go to the US with no medical insurance. That is entirely their responsibility.

As for the couple in the UK, no matter what the financial situation there is no reason for keeping the body as long as the parents had somewhere to take the body so it was treated respectfully and not taken home on the ferry or whatever. I was asked by the NHS to make sure I had a suitable means of transporting a body that I was collecting and they insisted on seeing it first because no undertaker was involved with the NHS.