Hospital

[Igottastartthinkingbee]

Anyone watching? A stunning insight into the running of a busy London hospital. Cannot believe the amount of time highly skilled doctors are forced to waste waiting for beds to become available. And the poor man with oesophageal cancer who's operation was cancelled for the second time. Wow. NHS is at breaking point!

The Nigerian lady says a hospital had agreed to pay.

I can believe that to be honest. I know it sounds awful but quads are quite rare and it's quite a "thing" that an obstetrician may want to further their experience in such a high risk pregnancy and someone like Priscilla provides a good experience.

Nobody should be allowed to get on a plane without proof of travel insurance.
Why should hospital staff have to be even dealing with this?

Priscilla became pregnant via IVF, how did she end up with quadruplets other than an IVF doctor putting too many embryos back? Which led her into the rather desperate position of feeling she had to travel to give birth.

She knew exactly what she was doing, they all do.

I think this guy is doing a really good (and sympathetic) job of what seems like a thankless task.

She was on a plane home and became dangerously ill. Hardly deliberate.

Agree, it shouldn't fall to NHS staff
Anyway it's clear that it's too late by then
Why not mandatory insurance with travel?

I don't understand all that with the lady with the babies in ICU, she flew to America with all the documents bar the correct one from previous hospital where they didn't have the facilities to cope with quads. She was sent back to Nigeria, then she flew out to the UK? She had IVF to have the babies, money for flights etc but no travel insurance?

She was on the way back to Nigeria from the US and the plane stopped over in the UK...

Ah right ok!

If you can afford flights you can afford travel insurance.

When I fell seriously ill in Sweden I wasn't allowed to be seen by a Doctor until they'd seen my EHIC card. If I didn't have that they would have swiped my credit card ready to charge it.
I understand that these are emergency cases but they should understand that the NHS isn't a free worldwide service.

If this lady had money for IVF and flights how could she not afford travel insurance?

teainbed I imagine that either 2 embryos were put back and they both split, creating 2 sets of MZ twins. Or 3 were put back and one split, or 4 were put back. IVF in this country has gotten very good at growing embryos to the stage where only one needs to be put back, but in other countries the success rates may still require more embryos to be implanted to ensure a pregnancy.

She was on a plane to Nigeria!

There are clearly people exploiting the NHS.
Other countries manage this better - in France we had to pay a bill up front

I assume Priscilla didn't have insurance because as far as she was concerned she was going straight to America where a hospital had agreed to foot the bill.

Soon we will all be paying

loops I know any of those scenarios are possible. I wonder what she was told about the risks of multiple births though and how well regulated IVF is in Nigeria.

No travel insurance company would provide cover for a woman pregnant with 4 babies!

The government could insist on proof of medical insurance on entry.
I'm proud that the quads mother was treated in the NHS.

As much as I hate the fact that a British resident isn't getting access to the PICU beds and she won't be paying a penny, I wouldn't want to start allowing people to die. It's not a simple decision.

There are also people not exploiting the NHS but getting hassled for money while they or their relatives are in intensive care.

There has to be a middle ground.

Totally agree. Perhaps it's time insurance became a condition of travel and not a choice. The Nigerian lady had money for ivf. She never intended giving birth there though. It seems as though this mans job is just paying lip service asking for money. I wonder how much they actually recover. Very little I suspect. And the Palestinian who came on the lorry obviously had no right to be here. Why just discharge home why not call the home office he didnt appear to have asylum documents did he. Very frustrating. Seems more needs to be done. The NHS is at breaking point.

Also, not sure how easy it is to get travel insurance while pregnant? Does it count as a 'pre-existing condition' and so won't be covered?

I had to have emergency surgery in spain - they wouldn't even touch me without either ehic or credit carv