Prince William at St Mary’s Hospital
Prince William here shown holding one of three-week-old twins Sina and Sem born to their mother Banata in a new baby unit of St Mary’s Hospital where he himself was born 24 years ago.
However, the UK Daily Mail today highlights a different story :
“For in a sad symbol of modern-day Britain, Banata is a homeless and penniless single mother from a faraway African land, surviving in Britain on state benefits. The 30-year-old lives in a council hostel for the destitute and it is here in an ill-furnished single room — unless the authorities find her a flat, which she believes is her right — that she will care for the twins when they leave hospital in a week’s time.”
Prince William had no idea of the politically-sensitive nature of the situation of the family when he met them. Britain’s NHS hospitals are being inundated with so-called “health tourists” who arrive and immediately check themselves into medical units straight from the airport, knowing they won’t be given a bill for even the most costly treatments.
Should we be proud of that, or should we be concerned at the poor standards now offered to the indigenous population who have to wait for years for even acute operations?
Although this is a sad situation for those poor babies to be born into. We have this same problem in the USA. The problem lies with the governments of those countries where poverty is high and the goverments do not extend even basic health care to it populations. The other side of the coin is these immigrants know that having children in a foreign country of better means not only gives that child citizenship usually but allows them to stay as well. I think priority should be given to born citizens of the country and unless it involves a birth immigrants secondary consideration.
By Trudie on September 30th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
It’s a huge problem here too, Trudie. By offering universal “human rights” anyone from anywhere in the world can arrive here and demand their “rights” to everything. I’m afraid the Marxists have won the battle, if not the argument.
By John on September 30th, 2006 at 8:11 pm