Nigerian health tourist who cost the NHS £145,000 having quintuplets has said she never even saw a bill. Bimbo Ayelabola, 37, had to have a complex caesarean section after travelling to Britain while pregnant in 2011.
The operation and neo-natal care for the five babies cost the Health Service in excess of £145,000 – but Miss Ayelabola never paid a penny towards the bill.
And now it has emerged the hospital involved will not chase her for the money.
Miss Ayelabola has since returned to her home city of Lagos, where she is a successful make-up artist who drives a £17,000 car.
When confronted by the Daily Mail about the NHS bill, she said: ‘I have never received my bill. If I had it, I would pay it.’
The hospital involved yesterday admitted it sent only one request for payment, more than six months after Miss Ayelabola left the hospital – and had failed to take any further action when it was returned unpaid.
It said it would not be pursuing Miss Ayelabola for the money, even after the Daily Mail offered to pass on her address.
The case follows a series of revelations by the Mail on the true scale of health tourism in Britain. NHS whistleblowers have told how bosses are instructing them to turn a blind eye to health tourists because it is ‘too much trouble’ to chase them for money.
Only around 16 per cent of the cost of treating health tourists is ever clawed back, according to NHS estimates.
The Nigerian mother obtained a visitor’s visa soon after discovering she was pregnant in 2010, travelling to the UK to stay with her younger sister, Stella, early in her pregnancy"
The operation and neo-natal care for the five babies cost the Health Service in excess of £145,000 – but Miss Ayelabola never paid a penny towards the bill.
And now it has emerged the hospital involved will not chase her for the money.
Miss Ayelabola has since returned to her home city of Lagos, where she is a successful make-up artist who drives a £17,000 car.
When confronted by the Daily Mail about the NHS bill, she said: ‘I have never received my bill. If I had it, I would pay it.’
The hospital involved yesterday admitted it sent only one request for payment, more than six months after Miss Ayelabola left the hospital – and had failed to take any further action when it was returned unpaid.
It said it would not be pursuing Miss Ayelabola for the money, even after the Daily Mail offered to pass on her address.
The case follows a series of revelations by the Mail on the true scale of health tourism in Britain. NHS whistleblowers have told how bosses are instructing them to turn a blind eye to health tourists because it is ‘too much trouble’ to chase them for money.
Only around 16 per cent of the cost of treating health tourists is ever clawed back, according to NHS estimates.
The Nigerian mother obtained a visitor’s visa soon after discovering she was pregnant in 2010, travelling to the UK to stay with her younger sister, Stella, early in her pregnancy"
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