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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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:
Riveninside · 03/07/2011 18:04

Are there figures on numbers of health tourists and costs?

catgirl1976 · 03/07/2011 18:06

Not so far in this debate. Had a good google but can't find anything. This is why the Sun is NOT news (aimed at ealier poster who said it was). It is just scare-mongering with no stats or information behind it.

Gastonladybird · 03/07/2011 18:07

Not that I could fins easily riven

thefirstMrsDeVere · 03/07/2011 18:10

I read that the explosion in immigrant births is amoung the tax paying economic migrants.

Lots of eastern europeans are catholic so therefore are perhaps more likely to have larger families? But they are paying their taxes and contributing towards the NHS so why should they be less entitled than someone born here?

As for those who cant afford to contribute - I dont want to see them turned away - the NHS was founded to prevent poverty causing ill health.

Nancy66 · 03/07/2011 18:12

But the NHS was founded at a time when the population was far lower, people didn't live as long and we didn't have problems with obesity, drugs and alcohol on the level that we do now - and we didn't have mass immigration.

It's simply not practical or economically viable for the NHS to continue running on the same basis it was founded.

thefirstMrsDeVere · 03/07/2011 18:20

Perhaps not Nancy but the ethos has to stay the same. To treat those in need.

The population may have been smaller but people were sicker. We have obesity now but they had TB and Typhoid and Polio.

Its not run on the same basis now. You dont stay for 14 days after having a baby, you dont get your ears pierced in A&E and you wont get a home visit from your GP as a matter of course.

Loads of things have changed.

onagar · 03/07/2011 18:27

If a tourist falls ill I'd expect them to get the same treatment as anyone else without question, but coming here with the intent of using the NHS is immoral and she should be ashamed (and of course sent home once recovered)

mathanxiety · 03/07/2011 18:53

MrsDeVere,, I agree with you; there has to be room for compassion in all of this. (But imo eastern European Catholics tend not to have large families, following the Soviet housing-shortage inspired trend.)

alemci · 03/07/2011 18:55

yes but we cannot have everyone here. No wonder people are having to work till 68 and there is no money for the elderly.

If this women does stay is she going to pay for anything. How can she when she has 5 children to look after. She will be another drain on resources.

mathanxiety · 03/07/2011 18:56

'everyone'?

thefirstMrsDeVere · 03/07/2011 18:58

Thanks for clarifying math I am no expert on birth rates in Eastern Europeans Grin

I work with 0-4 year olds in a special needs capacity so I see a lot of young parents. We are seeing more families from Poland etc. In most cases Dad is working and Mum is on mat leave or a SAHM. Not all and many will have to give up work due to the care their new baby will need.

But they are tax payers and are contributing to the system so why should it matter where they come from?

I just dont understand the anger directed at non british people that is so common on MN at the moment. Its very sad.

thefirstMrsDeVere · 03/07/2011 18:58

Fucking hell, now we are describing human beings a 'drains on resources'

Nice. Real nice.

DorcasBouvier · 03/07/2011 19:02

There was a thread on here a few months ago. I can't remember which section ~ it was about people campaigning to stop a little disabled girl being deported (maybe someone else will remember it). Anyway, the discussion got on to health tourism, and one of the posters said that she lost her premature baby due to there being no space in the SCBU, because a woman from Nigeria had come over to have her babies and taken all the spaces up. I'm sure this must be the same woman.

Gastonladybird · 03/07/2011 19:03

Mrs de vere - I dont think health tourism is same Thing as health tourism. So am at a loss as to why it is being mentioned?

Gastonladybird · 03/07/2011 19:04

Sorry didn't mean health tourism meant use of Nhs by taxpaying people who may have come from elsewhere

LadyBeagleEyes · 03/07/2011 19:06

Since the Uk is an ageing population surely we need those 'drains on the system' to grow up and work within the NHS etc, to look after us when we get old.

lachesis · 03/07/2011 19:08

'Since the Uk is an ageing population surely we need those 'drains on the system' to grow up and work within the NHS etc, to look after us when we get old.'

This person and her children are not legally entitled to stay in this country. I'm sure they'll use Legal Aid and EU law to obtain that, however.

ilovemydogandMrObama · 03/07/2011 19:08

It's fairly clear cut. If you aren't entitled to free NHS treatment, then of course you should pay.

However, there should be a system in place to collect as when my mom was over from California, when she went to A & E, the receptionist couldn't get the system to recognize her address in the USA. My mom was told to use my address Hmm. And on discharge, despite having her insurance details ready (travel and medical) the doctor said they didn't bother.

pigletmania · 03/07/2011 19:10

Well it is using up resources, some people do believe that the Government have a bottomless money pit whereby we can just pluck money when we need it. As the costs of the NHS rises, taxes have to go up to fund it!

catgirl1976 · 03/07/2011 19:11

Why does anyone read the Sun? Am genuinley baffled.

thefirstMrsDeVere · 03/07/2011 19:11

OMG the sky is falling in!!! Run run for your lives...

pigletmania · 03/07/2011 19:12

Exactly ilovemydog if your not entitled to it you have to pay! From what I understand the lady came to the UK when she was nearly due to gain free NHS treatment and thats wrong! Her using that is denying a UK citizen treatment that they need.

pigletmania · 03/07/2011 19:13

I don't!

pigletmania · 03/07/2011 19:13

I don't read any newspaper

mathanxiety · 03/07/2011 19:17

So nobody is going to look at what is obviously a problem of gross mismanagement within the NHS as a way of preventing tragedies like the loss of babies due to SCBUs being completely occupied? Is anyone really suggesting that SCBUs should be emptied for every new patient? Or should there be more SCBUs? (there should as the population grows more and more obese)

Or should healthy women who have premature babies more entitlement to SCBU places than obese ones or those who have somehow contributed to the condition their babies are born in? (thinking back to the strains on Ireland's maternity hospitals when heroin hit Dublin in the late 70s and early 80s and the massive amount of care heroin babies needed...)

Nobody is going to address the amount of resources used by lifelong smokers who now have emphysema, etc., or people who are obese and suffering the side effects?