Nigerian woman gives birth to quadruplets in London hospital, loses two as she racks up N300m bill
A Nigerian woman has been left stranded in a London hospital after leaving the country to give birth to her set of quadruplets.
The 43-year-old woman, identified simply as Priscilla, has incurred a bill of more than £500,000 (N300million in parallel market) after being delivered of four babies, DailyMail reports.
The weekly cost of treating one baby in neonatal intensive care is reportedly £20,000 (N12million in parallel market).
The healthcare worker had in November, left Nigeria to be delivered of her babies in Chicago, United States, where she has family.
She was however turned back by border officials upon her arrival at Heathrow airport, as they claimed she did not have the required documents from a hospital to show she could foot the bill of the delivery. Priscilla had a valid visa.
She was delivered of her babies at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in west London, part of Imperial College Hospital, after having contractions on her way back to Nigeria via London.
Priscilla, in a bid to become pregnant despite her age, had undergone IVF treatment – a doctored procedure which has a high risk of multiple births.
Her doctor advised her to fly to the US to have her babies, because Nigerian hospitals do not have the “facilities to cater for the children”.
The new mother was the subject of BBC 2 documentary Hospital on Thursday night, a TV programme which exposes the pressures of health tourism on the trust.
Priscilla is currently staying at a hostel run by a charity and is unable to afford the bill. Her husband remains in Nigeria, as he does not have enough money to facilitate a move to be with his wife.
Out of Priscilla’s four children, only two, Elijah and Esther, have survived and are still being treated on the hospital’s neonatal intensive care ward. One sadly died shortly after birth while another, a girl named Deborah, passed away on Saturday.
In explaining her inability to pay the bill to overseas visitor manager Terry Facey, Priscilla said: “I didn’t plan to come here.
“It’s only money. Money can’t buy life. The last bill I had was £331,000 but – even if I worked every day – I would never earn that much money. My kids are priceless.”
Priscilla and her innocent newborns’ fate now hangs in the balance as the hospital maintains its services, though quality, are not “free of charge”.
