Many of those that turn up at A&E know about their condition before they came here.
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A MATERNITY unit at an NHS hospital was used by around 900 pregnant health tourists last year — costing the taxpayer more than £4million in unpaid medical bills.
Officials say the deliveries from non-EU mums accounted for a fifth of all births at St George’s in Tooting, South London.
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A further random sample referenced in the papers found 19 out of 20 patients referred by GPs to St George’s were not eligible for free care.
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NIGERIAN mum Bimbo Ayelabola flew to Britain to give birth to her quintuplets by caesarean section.
Her two-week stay in Homerton Hospital, East London, in 2011 cost the NHS around £200,000, but it is unlikely she will pay the sum back.
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One of the first letters I received was from a junior hospital doctor working close to Heathrow airport. ‘Every single week, I see people who have been flown in from all over the world with a variety of extremely serious health problems,’ he wrote. ‘Many of these people had to be wheelchaired on to the plane because they were too unwell to walk on board.
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There is much evidence of identity fraud. In every maternity unit, identifying the blood group of the mother is obligatory. Over time, patients have given a registered name, address and NHS number — but are found to have different blood groups from the one on record. This is conclusive proof of an identity being shared.
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There are similar abuses in oncology, HIV, infertility and in the treatment of renal failure. Renal dialysis is probably the most costly form of abuse because the treatment needs to take place three times a week and may result in a kidney transplant. I am told of one example where a patient arrived in renal failure on a visitor’s visa and was blue-lighted to a hospital for dialysis. At the last count, this person has had 849 dialysis sessions as well as numerous other treatments.
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An NHS number is a valuable commodity which confers legitimacy and has market value. But there is no black market for NHS numbers: they are given away free. Primary Care regulations encourage overseas visitors to take an NHS number.
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An NHS number makes an ineligible patient almost invisible to the most vigilant OVO(Overseas Visitor Officers). The system is an open invitation to the world to abuse the NHS.
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The list is rather extensive.
So many of the health tourists use backdoor methods or just simple fraud to avoid being included in the non-UK figures in the first place.