The woman was taken ill on a flight from the US to Nigeria via Heathrow.
It comes as a group of MPs have urged the government to take "urgent action" to recover more money for treating foreign patients.
A Public Accounts Committee report says the system for recouping costs from overseas patients is "chaotic".
The case of the Nigerian woman is thought to be one of the NHS's biggest unpaid bills for an overseas patient.
The woman, who is included in the BBC Two programme Hospital, was due to give birth in the US, where she has family, but had been turned away for not having the right hospital paperwork.
She was taken ill on her flight home to Nigeria and ended up in St Mary's A&E, which covers Heathrow after her flight stopped over at the airport.
Priscilla was three months away from her due date.
She gave birth to one baby who died and she and her three children were all placed in intensive care.
Another of her children died on Saturday and her two surviving children remain in intensive care which costs £20,000 a week per child.
Priscilla was released from hospital after six weeks and is being supported by a charity as she has no family in the UK and admits she has no ability to pay the bill.
The NHS Imperial College Trust which includes St Mary's spent £4m on overseas patients last year and managed to recoup £1.6m.
Treatment given in A&E departments is free to all, however, once you are admitted, even as an emergency, overseas visitors are chargeable.
In October, it was revealed the government was expected to fall short of its target of recovering £500m a year from overseas visitors and the Department of Health "refined" its target for 2017-18 to £346m.
bbc
It comes as a group of MPs have urged the government to take "urgent action" to recover more money for treating foreign patients.
A Public Accounts Committee report says the system for recouping costs from overseas patients is "chaotic".
The case of the Nigerian woman is thought to be one of the NHS's biggest unpaid bills for an overseas patient.
The woman, who is included in the BBC Two programme Hospital, was due to give birth in the US, where she has family, but had been turned away for not having the right hospital paperwork.
She was taken ill on her flight home to Nigeria and ended up in St Mary's A&E, which covers Heathrow after her flight stopped over at the airport.
Priscilla was three months away from her due date.
She gave birth to one baby who died and she and her three children were all placed in intensive care.
Another of her children died on Saturday and her two surviving children remain in intensive care which costs £20,000 a week per child.
Priscilla was released from hospital after six weeks and is being supported by a charity as she has no family in the UK and admits she has no ability to pay the bill.
The NHS Imperial College Trust which includes St Mary's spent £4m on overseas patients last year and managed to recoup £1.6m.
Treatment given in A&E departments is free to all, however, once you are admitted, even as an emergency, overseas visitors are chargeable.
In October, it was revealed the government was expected to fall short of its target of recovering £500m a year from overseas visitors and the Department of Health "refined" its target for 2017-18 to £346m.
bbc
Na wa o. Thank goodness she has two kids but how was she hoping to finance the US delivery? I know £330k isn't beans but doesn't she have anything to offset it a bit? Let's pray someone or a group helps her out
ReplyDeleteI pray she gets help o, 330 naira is not beans talk less of pounds
DeleteThey should wave it jare. It was an emergency and not a deliberate attempt to fraud the NHS. This case is peculiar and the charity org can help her sort it out by paying just a little. Many illegal immigrants give birth in the U.K everyday and they don't make the headline.
DeleteNot supporting it but this case is a pitiable one considering the circumstances. Just saying
OK bye
Eyaaa very sad one. She lost two children out of the four join😓😟wahala everywhere.
ReplyDeleteAnd they want to use a pregnant woman to lay their claim ?
ReplyDeleteSee bill oo, btw they can see she ddnt plan to gv birth there maybe she had prepared herself very well for the US.
ReplyDeleteI read this story yesterday, it's embarrassing
ReplyDeleteOh my! This is just sad. Loosing 2 of the kids is an experience she will never forget. I pray the other 2 wins their battle.
ReplyDeleteWhere will she get all that money from? Even if I have it I won't disclose. That's what all those nonprofit groups and churches rendering charity are for.
I don't like flights while pregnant, wetin I dey find upandan. Chai I really feel for her
MrsBee
They should have pity on the woman and cancel her bills on humanitarian grounds. She has already list a lot. Losing kids is no joke. British government please help her.
ReplyDeleteOn a lighter note, she's very fortunate to be abroad, if it were here d doctors will have thrown her out with the kids. Them no send here.
Mam ejima it is well with u
#lost
DeleteExactly
DeleteChoi see Figure abeg .I pray God intervene.
ReplyDeleteThe sad thing is that 2 of the 4 babies died. It pained me so much. After all the suffering.
ReplyDeleteVery painful. She's been through a lot already. I guess the turn down by the U.S aggravated her to a premature delivery
DeleteHmm complicated case.
ReplyDeleteI feel for the woman though, she could have found a reliable hospital there in Nigeria!
ReplyDeleteIt was in the same Nigeria, a woman that I know very gave birth to the same quadrunplets in 2002 and they all survived, the kids are all grown up now.
Two babies gone just like that, she's indebted and also homeless at the same time.
I hope the other two babies come out healthy.
Who will pick up the debt? Taxpayers. Do you blame Nigerian Doctors who insist on payment before treatment. Nigerians like to enjoy the best and hope to pay nothing for it. Na wa
ReplyDeleteIt's wasn't planned
DeleteAh she should drop something oo. How can she leave this gbese for taxpayers? They shouldn't release her until she pays ah ah. This is a typical example of monkey de work baboon de chop mschewwwww
ReplyDeleteYou didn't even empathise with the loss of her kids, before spewing trash. Early morning f00l.
Delete@ Samira Hall, Na wa, u tell this to a woman that just lost 2 kids. SMH
DeleteWait she wanted to give birth in the US, so who was going to pay? The money she spent on flying would have made a big dent in her bills. She should pay. So if it was in Nigeria she won't pay? This is no sentiment business . My friend that has been living and working in the USA is still paying for having his child. Even with insurance he has been paying for 3 years straight. So she made a choice and should bear the consequences
DeleteOnigbese! How was she gonna pay in the US?
DeleteThey say she has relatives in the US, they might be planning to put her on their insurance, use the services available that wouldn't have cost her only a fraction of what she owes now. She could have been planning to apply for assistance/benefits etc. plus I'm sure she wasn't planning on having the complications she ended up having that nicked her fees sky-high. Some of the options I listed might not be exactly honest ones but they're still within the law and regulations and the lady could have been planningbto take advantage of one or more of them.i pray her remaining kids survive and stay healthy, I also pray that she gets the help she needs right now.
DeletePoor woman!!! To think she already lost two of her children.
ReplyDeleteAnd this would be paid for by U.K. Tax payers. And you say they should not be harder on immigrants?
ReplyDeleteOh! My God! Please send help to this woman in Jesus name Amen.
ReplyDeleteIt is well with you ma'am.
Oh! My God! Please send help to this woman in Jesus name Amen.
ReplyDeleteIt is well with you ma'am.
cant imagine the trauma she is going through... gave birth to four and been left with two... may God send help her way...amen
ReplyDeletehahhahaha what a pity. Who will pay this money considering the price of pounds.
ReplyDeleteThey should just give her cleaner job so that she can be working for them.
Deep sigh
ReplyDeleteOh dear! How will she pay? And she lost two too...
ReplyDeleteMay God keep her and the remaining two safe...
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine the trauma she'd be going through. It is well
ReplyDeleteWhere is her husband in all of these? Abi it's just the woman alone?
ReplyDeleteWow that's N201,300,000 in present rate.
ReplyDeleteThe british should stop complaining. They should pay for the woman's bill from the millions of pounds of visa fees they charge visa applicants each year. In fact why don't they just add small NHS charge to every visa fee? If she was british and jobless the NHS will still treat her free of charge after all.
ReplyDeleteIts such a pity, the loss she has suffered is better imagined. She should have just settled for a good hospital in Nigeria instead of traveling since she knew she didn't have reserve for emergency situations.
ReplyDeleteOmo i thank God for her lives and that of her children. British government should take from the money our corrupt politicians lodged in their banks biko. They have not even returned the abacha loot. British government should take several seats.
ReplyDeletelove me jeje you are a nasty piece of shit....do u even consult your brain before you type? fool, agbaya oshi, disgraceful idiot
ReplyDeleteOh please sentiments aside,this is pure health tourism and health scam, I doubt she planned on going to the US to birth this babies, her plan was to give birth in the UK cos she knows health care is free for UK citizens and isn't free in the US, she's claiming not to have money and didn't plan to have the baby in the UK but heading to US, what money was she planning on paying for hospital bill in the US since she suddenly doesn't have a penny now? Moreover didn't she do the ivf in Nigeria, why can't she birth her babies in Nigeria? I worked as a doctor in Nigeria before relocating to the UK and we have successfully delivered quadruplets in Nigeria even more before and all babies survived, a good private hospital would deliver these babies for less than 1.5million or even 1million in Nigeria. She is partly the reason why 2 of her babies died cos she has no business flying up and down at this stage in her pregnancy knowing she's carrying quadruplets, that's a high risk pregnancy considering her age too cos she's over 40 years going from the documentary I watched about her, she caused her body to go into premature labour by flying! Nigerians always like taking advantage of things and abusing the system. Now tax payers will bear the burden and this will further tighten the rules on immigration concerning pregnant women traveling.
ReplyDeleteNigeria and Naijas as a whole have paid back the British NHS/system ten times over this amount already. How one may ask? Well, consider the biz deals by conglomerates like BP/Texaco since oil was discovered in Naija; stashed loot in various UKaccounts/stocks/properties by Naija's corrupt fat cats which strengthens the pounds in relation to the naira over the years; these are merely a few examples of the ways in which the average Naija has more than compensated the UK's economy to its own detriment. Yet, will the concerned Naija powers ever learn to steer this ship on a more purposeful course 4 the dignity of its own citizens? QED@atm
ReplyDeletesisi eko shut up!!! Some of you like to form and do as if you know how things are done abroad.
ReplyDeleteWhat is peculiar about her case apart from the fact that she cannot afford to pay her bill, please enlighten us? Almost every day across the UK, lots of Nigerian women on visiting visas go into labour in hospitals and do not pay. Yes many illegal immigrants give birth every day in the UK but none of them run up bills of £300K plus...
All of you running your mouths, you think this is Nigeria where government hospitals are always being run into the ground? If the UK hospitals turn into charities and are covering the cost for every high risk pregnancy delivery from around the world, then they would not be in a position to achieve what they were set up for in the first place.
It was a deliberate attempt to defraud the US that has ended up defrauding the UK abi? If she had genuine plans to have her baby in the US, how come she cannot transfer the funds to the UK? Those of you making mouth about maybe her relatives planned to add her to their medical insurance, you think that is how medical insurance works? You get pregnant then you get insurance? That is not how medical insurance works. If that is what they do, all Nija's in America will simply add all their brothers and sisters to their medical insurance when they are pregnant or when they fall ill. In which case, how do you think the medical insurance companies manage to make a living? Most of you talking have never even heard of travel insurance and do not realize that most countries take it for granted that people have some sort of travel insurance to cover them in the event of an emergency like what she had.
As for the fool that said they should take it from visa fees, do you know how much Nigeria charges for visa fees? Far more than other countries charge you, so shut up your trap.
Those of you that feel the NHS is wrong to ask her for the money, why don't you send something to help her out with her bills. Idiots all of you, your mouths are only sharp to run down other people's business and spoil things in other people's countries. Is it their fault that you have allowed your country to be ruined? Now you want to go about ruining other people's countries. Shameless fools!!!
Now next time they see a pregnant looking Nigerian woman, even if it is only 4 months gone, they will insist on proof of travel insurance and funds for a worst case scenario medical bill and you will be the same people to be jumping up and down saying discrimination or why did they not do it to a Ghanaian woman on the same flight. You all forget that these things affect all of us. Lets see how sympathetic you will be to this woman when you find, Nigerian women going to have their babies in the US as well are told they must first submit to a scan to ascertain how many babies they have, then show proof that they can pay for an emergency delivery/treatment of twin premature babies in hospital.
Thank you @anon 15:20. I was so annoyed when i first heard of this woman's case. She has just made things worse for other Nigerian travelers. It seems she intended to have that child without paying for care received - whether UK or US was the destination - and that is fraudulent behavior. Furthermore she deliberately risked the lives of her children and even herself by embarking on such a high-risk journey especially as she must have known that complications are more likely with multiple births in a woman over 40. She killed the 2 that died with her irresponsibility. You would be even more furious if you lived and worked in either of these countries and paid your taxes. What she did is nothing short of wicked. They'll probably have no choice but to let her go. Disgraceful fraudulent woman.
ReplyDelete