Brum Mum hit with £75k hospital bill after premature birth in USA

[DGRossetti]

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/bartley-green-mum-hit-75k-19484536

A mum has racked up a £75,000 medical bill after prematurely giving birth in America - two days before she was due to fly home to Birmingham.

Amy Collins, from Birmingham, needed an emergency caesarean to deliver tiny William Collins in Texas on December 11.

He was born at 24 weeks and weighed just 1lb 9ozs and needed specialist care in hospital where he remains.

Amy, 30, had been due to fly back to Birmingham on December 13.

But with no insurance she has been left with a medical bill of £75,000 for the delivery and care of her son - with the charges set to rocket further.

(contd)

I think a lot of people don’t get insurance or don’t get adequate insurance.

Dd has coeliac disease, generally it doesn’t affect her. Worst thing is she accidentally eats gluten and spends a day shitting herself and vomiting. But we always declare it because I know if I don’t and she ends up with any sort of gastro issue while away the insurance might look for any way of wriggling out of paying. It does cost us a bit more and some places won’t insure but it’s not worth the risk.

If you can afford to splash out on a holiday to America

She is married to an American and lives there.

Yes, Soup , so she should have looked into getting medical insurance here. As a spouse, she’d be eligible to go on his plan-or take out her own insurance.

Unless she’s not really resident in the US and has been visiting on a tourist visa. There’s a limit to how much time legal residents can spend outside the country so perhaps she wasn’t spending enough time here. It doesn’t matter whether you’re married to an American or not, the residency requirements still apply. Whatever the reason, it’s a big mess. I hope their baby is OK.

Going backwards and forward means shes married but doesn't have residency. She's obviously not got a visa (bloody hard to get one even if you marry a US citizen - especially this year).

So her legal status will be that she is a uk resident.

By the same token its quite possible that he is unable to get a residency visa for the uk if her income isn't high enough (and if shes living between the US and the UK its unlikely shes in permanent full time work).

So i do kind of feel sorry for the family for falling in between the cracks in the immigration system. And i really feel sorry for a 7 year old caught in that situation.

She should have had insurance but if you are caught in that situation its easy to see why she might not (especially if an online relationship and he is also a low wage earner). And legally she probably was perfectly entitled to NHS treatment.

I think the real story here is one about not being able to afford to live together and have health coverage because they are caught in the immigration system with possibly no chance of resolution. In that sense those bills are not the only concern this couple have. Its custody rights (the son will have right to residency, whilst his sister the step daughter won't) as well in the long term if the relationship doesn't work out because of visa issues.

That's where i have sympathy. Because they may well be effectively too poor to be married to each other and live together.

Stupid and irresponsible. She's owed for a medical service, so should pay.... not difficult