UK taxpayers pay £200,000 bill for Nigerian mother who had quintuplets.

A Nigerian mother who flew into Britain when she learned she was pregnant and had quintuplets has cost taxpayers an estimated £200,000.

The health tourism row erupted after it emerged Bimbo Ayelabola, 33, has asked the Home Office for a six-month extension of her visa which expired last Monday.
She claims that the children - boys Tayseel and Samir, and girls, Aqeelah, Binish and Zara - are too fragile to take back to Nigeria.
 

 They were born at Homerton Hospital, in Hackney, east London, by caesarian surgery at 32 weeks on April 28.


 
Ayelabola also says that all her friends and family live in the UK and she has no 'support network' in Lagos where she lived.
 
Her husband visited her in hospital but flew back home after discovering it was a multiple pregnancy and he faced having to care for his big family..
 
She said: 'If I go back I'll be on my own without even a roof over my head.'

Bimbo during her pregnancy.

 
 
  Ayelabola, now living in a two-bedroom flat in Poplar, east London, was reported to have been taking twice the prescribed dose of a fertility drug when she became pregnant.
 
Soon after discovering she was expecting, Ayelabola quickly obtained a UK visitors' visa. On arrival, she had an emergency NHS scan which showed she was expecting quads.
 
Doctors only discovered the fifth baby during the caesarian operation.
 

She told the Sun: 'I had already had miscarriages and couldn't bear the stress another pregnancy would cause.
 
'I thought I would stand a much better chance of avoiding another miscarriage in a calmer place with friends and family.'  
Bimbo is arguing that there is no "support network" of family and friends left in Nigeria to help her bring up her kids because they are all in the UK already.
Bimbo's husband Ohi, 37, is not. He came to Britain to visit her in hospital but fled back to Nigeria after discovering it was a multiple pregnancy and he faced being responsible for the brood.
The Home Office will now decide whether to grant Bimbo a six-month extension of her visa which expired on June 27.
Officials are also considering sending her a bill for the huge cost of her six months of care which included treatment by consultants, paediatricians, nurses, midwives, social workers and back-up staff. But Bimbo would be unable to pay anyway.
She insists she had no idea she was expecting more than one child when she sought a UK visa after getting pregnant in November
Bimbo is helped by her sister Stella, 26, and a Nigerian school pal. They take turns to feed the babies in Stella's two-bedroom flat in Poplar, East London. But they are struggling to make ends meet as each baby costs £70-a-week in milk formula and nappies alone. Bimbo is being backed by immigration lawyer Mark Dada. He has applied to the Home Office for her to stay.
But a Home Office spokesman said: "The NHS is a national health service, not an international one. We expect those with no right to be in the UK to leave. otherwise we will remove them."