Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Health Tourism - woman has 5 babies on the NHS

545 replies

BlimmingCheek · 02/07/2011 22:44

AIBU to think that this woman is taking the bloody piss?

www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3673011/Nigerian-mum-Bimbo-Ayelabola-flew-into-Britain-and-had-quins-on-the-NHS.html

I very much doubt she will be sent back. Who is paying her legal fees is what I would like to know?

Are we a soft touch or just a lovely compassionate country with enough resources for all?

OP posts:
JessKM · 03/07/2011 01:16

Incidentally - If I were in a non-EU country, say hypothetically speaking, the USA (or nigeria) and gave birth unexpectedly would I have to foot the bill for mine and the babies health care?

Also Clomid over the counter?????? is that what all the cool kids are taking nowadays? please tell me thats not available here!!!!!!! Angry

A1980 · 03/07/2011 01:17

What would you have preferred? The hospital to stick her on the next plane out when the pregnancy was discovered and sod her health? For them to have refused to treat her?

Why not?!

suzikettles that is exactly what would happen to a British person in most countries. Do you think the US healthcare would trip over themselves to fund care for her or you for that matter. You'd be slung out or be refused treatment unless you pay first.

We didn't get her into this situation. She has contributed nothing on taxes or NI and therefore paid nothing towards the care she's received. There are millions upon millions of ill, starving people in this world. Can the NHS fund care for them all. The line has to be drawn somewhere.

somethingwitty82 · 03/07/2011 01:33

"The words "no recourse to public funds" on the visa means exactly that."

No it doesn't. Gamus mum was no recourse- went to uni, claimed benefits and lives in a cooncil hoose.

Me= 22 years on the waiting list

GIve it 6 months shell have free house, ct,CB, grant for furniture

There is perhaps a reason the country has extremely high house prices and low wages

LolaRennt · 03/07/2011 04:49

suzikettles that is exactly what would happen to a British person in most countries. Do you think the US healthcare would trip over themselves to fund care for her or you for that matter. You'd be slung out or be refused treatment unless you pay first.

A1980

NO one gets denied emergency care in the US and a pregnant woman would always be seen to, but don't let facts get in the way of you pretending to know what you are talking about.

LolaRennt · 03/07/2011 04:53

So would someone of you actually send a woman in labour with 5 babies home? Even though a labour like that and with no midwife could result in her and the babies death? TO save a few pennies for the NHS?

Iteotwawki · 03/07/2011 05:10

Lola - 200,000 pounds is considerably more than a few pennies. There are several mothers in third world countries who are likely to die in pregnancy or delivery, should we be flying them all to the UK?

Her babies quite possibly had a negative impact on the care of babies whose mothers were entitled to it - which by accident of birth she was not.

Her £200,000 medical costs would pay for how many nurses for a year? Fund how many icu beds? The NHS is a finite pie and if people take slices out of it like this, there will be none left (unless more taxpayers foot the increased bills).

Our healthcare budgets don't take into account funding for those who don't live here /shrug. I'm not saying I wouldn't have done exactly as she did to ensure maximum safety for my children but that doesn't make it right.

SchrodingersMew · 03/07/2011 05:24

If this thread had been started about a single British woman who doesn't work and is on benefits in the same scenario, there would be a huge fight about how she shouldn't have taken the clomid to get pregnant when she couldn't support herself...

How is this any different or better? Just because she had 5 cute babies?

mathanxiety · 03/07/2011 06:11

LOL -- did you know that Nigeria was once a part of the British Empire? It achieved independence in 1960.

FYI -- Nigeria was once administered as northern and southern regions but was amalgamated under the one administration during WW1 to make possible action against neighbouring German Cameroon. The two regions, north and south, are very distinct, though the whole country is home to about 250 distinct ethnic groups. It is a completely artificial state therefore, like much of the former British Empire (NI and the Republic of Ireland being prime examples), its borders based on the convenience of the colonial administration and having nothing to do with ethnic or religious lines of demarcation in the country itself. Like most other parts of the Empire, Nigeria was administered on a divide and conquer basis, with a favoured elite able to share in the spoils of conquest with the British, while political opponents of the elite and of the British were left out of the grabbing and ruthlessly oppressed. The pattern of the ruling elite using the country's natural wealth and resources to maintain power and for self enrichment has continued after independence.

Since bearing a child is essentially an elective act, why not charge all women who insist on taking precious NHS resources from other more deserving patients by selfishly having babies, especially the mothers of multiples.

SheCutOffTheirTails · 03/07/2011 06:23

Well said edam

There are interesting issues here, if only people could discuss them without being called racist.

If you think there is no problem with the NHS being targeted in this way, does that mean you are OK with British babies losing out? Or that you think the NHS is unsustainable and people should just grab what they can while it's available? Or do you think the NHS can manage to treat anyone who can manage to get here, even for non-emergency situations? Maybe it could. Should it, if that were possible?

If you don't think the NHS should have treated this woman, at what point should treatment have been refused? She was here legally, and she needed treatment. What kind of health system turns someone away who needs care? Is that the kind of system we want?

mathanxiety · 03/07/2011 06:38

Obviously the solution is to bill the Nigerian government.

mathanxiety · 03/07/2011 06:53

Problem in Ireland involving baby/passport tourism. Ireland and the US used to be the only two countries where babies born were automatically entitled to citizenship because of birth there.

The Irish law has now been amended afaik, so no more 'anchor babies' in Ireland, and the US is now the only country where this is possible. During debate on the matter, the high risk nature of deliveries where a mother would often be carted straight from the airport to the Rotunda (the closest maternity hospital) was emphasised. 250 women who arrived in Ireland and had hardly any prenatal treatment, or none at all, before delivering, were treated in the Rotunda, with many hundreds more in the other two major maternity hospitals in Dublin, Holles Street and The Coombe. About 2/3 days of the year in the Rotunda, staff tried to treat people who might or might not speak English, and whose medical histories they had no access to.

mathanxiety · 03/07/2011 06:55

...in Dublin, Holles Street and The Coombe in 1997.

MrsKravitz · 03/07/2011 07:07

I was here on a work permit and was told if i had been here for less than 13 months I would have had to pay full fees for maternity services whe I had ds. I had been here 16 when I had him

mathanxiety · 03/07/2011 07:42

I investigated having DD3 in Dublin, returning home from the US a few months before her due date, and was told I would have to pay as I had made no health contributions in Ireland at that point. My private insurance in the US did not cover maternity. I ended up applying for the state aided medical coverage in the US and had to put off antenatal visits until my application was approved.

OpinionatedPlusSprogs · 03/07/2011 07:47

Britain can't afford to provide maternity services to the entire world. However I would like to see accurate statistics from an unbiased source before I view health tourism as a problem. I won't be getting my knickers in a twist over this article. The Sun using a rare and extreme case to back up it's political agenda. Again. Reminds of the stories about housing benefit where they have ten kids, live in a mansion and cost millions or whatever it was.

sweetness86 · 03/07/2011 08:20

I agree the line has to be drawn somewhere she shouldnt of taken clomid in the first place especially the amount she used !

I can see why she wants to stay here we have a good system in place regarding welfare but where does it all end?

JamieAgain · 03/07/2011 09:09

TSC - YES!

pigletmania · 03/07/2011 09:13

Why should we not discuss this? We are talking about there here and now, not what happened hundreds of years ago Hmm. This woman knew what she was doing, and that is why she came to the UK just before the birth. I totally disagree with it, this is not just an isolated incident but happens very frequently! We are in debt as a country as it is and cannot afford to to this on a large scale, when this happens other people suffer as they have to make cut backs to pay for it. We have a National Health Service not an international one!

pigletmania · 03/07/2011 09:15

We can bearly afford to look after our own citizens let alone people from other countries, some people think that the Government has a bottomless pit of money to throw away, WE DONT!!!!

pigletmania · 03/07/2011 09:17

I was watching Baby Hospital, and a couple's child was born 4 months early whilst they were visiting relatives in England. They were from the United Arab Emirates I think. The husband was billed £200,00 by the NHS, what makes this lady different from this chap. Her Goverment should be billed for it, and she should be sent back.

Gastonladybird · 03/07/2011 09:19

I would like to see hard facts on what actual figures are on healt tourism ESP ante natal figures. I wouldn't want to base my reaction on my own poor experience of ante natal service.

Gastonladybird · 03/07/2011 09:22

Piglet I think she will be billed but they don't think she will pay. Fwiw the central London hospital I am at for antenatal care has a lot of posters and leaflets up saying if you are recent arrivl you may have to pay etc. So I don't think it's a case of the policy not being made obvious or followed up( interesting observation that this much more obvious now than when had dd 3 years ago).

LegoStuckinMyhoover · 03/07/2011 09:24

when ''good old hard working british tax payers'' go into hospitals in the uk they get 2nd rate treatment in our failing nhs hospitals -according to these sorts of newspapers [if you could call the sun a newspaper]. when someone from another country uses the nhs, it's suddenly wonderful and first class!

oh dear. yawwwwwwwwwwwn indeed.

Gastonladybird · 03/07/2011 09:25

Also I think there was reference in Sunday times to a rule change where you ill not be allowed back in country if you have more than £1k of unpaid medical bills (sorry can't link to Sunday times article).

JamieAgain · 03/07/2011 09:26

I wouldn't comment on any story in the SUN