Mother gets £25,000 bill for birth as NHS 'full up'

A mother who went into premature labour was left with a £25,000 bill after she was sent to a private hospital because of a shortage of NHS intensive care cots.

Rachel Harvey, 32, gave birth to her son Aaron at the Portland Hospital in London after she was told the nearest NHS hospital able to deliver her baby was 50 miles away, a journey that posed too great a risk.

Miss Harvey's ordeal began when her waters broke nine weeks early while she was at home in Golders Green, north London. She phoned her obstetrican, Dr Donald Gibb at St John and St Elizabeth Hospital in St John's Wood, where she was booked as a private patient.

It was discovered her baby was in the breach position and would be born nine weeks premature – within hours.

Dr Gibbs called three NHS hospitals in the area, (St Mary's at Paddington, The University College Hospital and the Royal Free Hospital) but no beds were available. After calling the national emergency bed line, the doctor was told Miss Harvey should be taken to the Haroldway Hospital or the Medway Hospital in Kent but he ruled it out on safety grounds.

Dr Gibb delivered Aaron, Miss Harvey's first child, two hours later by caesarean section on 22 August.

He weighed 3.5lb and was put on a respirator to stop his lungs collapsing.

She paid the Portland's fees with the help of her sister-in-law, Lydia Searle, and asked Barnet NHS Primary Care Trust if they would cover the Portland's fees.

The trust's chief executive Averil Dongworth said she sympathised over the difficulties of the birth. But she added: "The NHS is not funded to reimburse people for private care they have chosen themselves.

"In some circumstances, where no alternative, NHS facility is available and the patient's GP believes a referral to a non-NHS facility is the only solution then private care may be funded but it is not the case here."