Bimbo Ayelabola, who gave birth to quintuplets in London & the drama over her unpaid £145,000 bill

A 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. It said it would not be pursuing Miss Ayelabola for the money, even after the Daily Mail offered to pass on her address.

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.

She gave birth to two boys and three identical girls at Homerton Hospital in Hackney, East London, in April 2011 – seven weeks premature. She had a complex caesarean and remained in hospital for almost two weeks after the birth at a cost of £145,000 to UK taxpayers.

Despite having an expired visa, Miss Ayelabola continued living in her sister’s flat in Poplar, East London, after the births. She didn’t return home until February 2013.

Miss Ayelabola’s children are now four years old and attending a private school. When she was tracked down by the Mail to the small salon she shares with other beauticians, she said she did not understand what she had done wrong. ‘What is it that’s my fault? I don’t understand,’ she said.

‘They blamed me that I came to the UK and I just came to use the system. Which I did not do.

‘If it (health tourism) is a problem in the UK, you should talk to the NHS. I have never received my bill. If I had it, I would pay it.’

She added that she was allowed to stay in the UK without needing to ask and without having to apply.

‘I did not want to stay... it was just my situation,’ she said.

MPs and campaigners last night described the case as ‘galling’ and called for an inquiry into the hospital’s failure to recoup the money. 

Conservative MP Peter Bone said: ‘If people have failed to do what they should, then at the very least they need to put in a robust system to ensure it doesn’t happen again.’

Roger Goss, of Patient Concern, added: ‘No wonder the NHS has such financial problems.’

Miss Ayelabola runs a successful make-up business at the Elderberry Salon in east Lagos. Her two boys, Tayseel and Samir, and three girls, Aqeelah, Binish and Zara, attend a respected private school nearby. Fees are at least £8,000 a year for the five of them.

She is thought to live alone with them and when they are not in school, she takes them with her to work. She charges £40 per hour for a full face of make-up and advertises through her Instagram account, called ‘Otse Beauty’. On the account she posts photographs of herself and others in dramatic eye make-up.

It is understood Miss Ayelabola is separated from her wealthy husband, Ohi Nasir Ilavbare, but he is still involved in the children’s lives and is believed to pay for their education.

The university-educated civil engineer runs two successful logistics firms, Spry and Radija, whose clients include British American Tobacco and DHL.

In an interview in 2011 Miss Ayelabola said: ‘I had already had miscarriages and couldn’t bear the stress another pregnancy would cause. So I decided to visit my family in London.

‘I thought I would stand a much better chance of avoiding another miscarriage in a calmer place with friends and family.’

However, when speaking to the Mail she denied coming to the UK to give birth. She claimed she had no idea she was expecting more than one child and was planning to return to Nigeria to have the babies – until she had medical complications. ‘I stayed after my children were born because my kids were sick,’ she said.

The multiple births are likely to be a result of double doses of fertility drug Clomid, which she took for eight times longer than recommended after buying the pills over the counter in Lagos.

Miss Ayelabola is understood to have left the UK voluntarily in February 2013, following contact with the Home Office. It is believed she has been banned from returning to Britain for five years.

The UK’s system for flagging up foreign patients sees them treated before hospital staff try to claw back costs.