Hospital Refuses to Release Newborn Baby Until New Parents Pay Massive Bill
A Dubai hospital has stunned everyone–most of all a set of new parents–by refusing to release a baby until an $80,000 hospital bill is paid. The new parents are horrified and say they have no way to pay a bill that big, probably not ever, and it’s unclear what the hospital’s end game is. Are they just going to keep the baby forever?
According to The New York Post, Ruth Wambui Mwaura is from Kenya, where she lives with her husband and where she intended to deliver her baby.
On the last day of a vacation with her husband in the United Arab Emirates, she suddenly went into labor at just 25 weeks and had to be rushed to the emergency room.
Her baby boy, Kiama, was born the next day, on February 11, and at 25 weeks he was very premature, but well. Kiama is now two months old and big and healthy enough to leave the hospital, but now the hospital says they will not let him leave until the parents pay $80,000 for his premature birth and ensuing care.
”I am currently out of work and my husband is a petrol pump filler,” she told The Sun.
Her husband makes about $486 a month. There’s no way they’ll ever be able to save up $80,000 to pay the hospital’s bill.
”We certainly were not prepared for something like this. We could not have imagined in our wildest dreams that we would be in this situation,” she said.
The hospital has not commented on the situation, but it’s a mystery where they intend to go with this. The new parents are desperate to bring their baby home, but they are probably never going to be able to pay $80,000. If the hospital won’t let the baby go, aren’t the bills just getting higher and higher as they continue to care for him? The poor parents are distraught, and the baby just wants to go home with them.
