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.'
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.'
Ayelabola may still have to pay the cost of her care which includes treatment by consultants, midwives, paediatricians and social workers.
But Home Office officials know she will be unable to pay the bill.
A spokesman said: 'The NHS is a national health service not an international one. We expect those with no rights to be in the UK to leave otherwise we will remove them.'
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