Health

A Nigerian woman who gave birth to IVF quadruplets after a stop-over flight to the UK will detail her journey in BBC2 documentary Hospital, tomorrow. The 43 year-old Lagos native, known as Priscilla (left), was filmed over several weeks at London's St Mary's Hospital while racking-up a £500,000 bill which remains unpaid. Her case exposes the crippling costs that health tourists place on taxpayers, with Whitehall research putting the cost to the NHS at anywhere between £200million and £2billion a year. Other examples include a Palestinian man who 'disappeared into the community' following a kidney stones procedure (bottom right) and a Filipino woman (top right) who had heart surgery after falling ill visiting the UK, only to return home unable to pay for the procedure.

A US doctor given months to live fears he will not get to say goodbye to his family - since they are Syrian and barred by President Trump's travel ban. Morhaf Al Achkar, 33, emigrated to the United States from Syria in 2006, before becoming an esteemed primary care physician at Indiana University. In November, he was diagnosed with metastatic lung cancer, which typically carries a life expectancy of four to 10 months.

Six years on, Viscount Hinchingbrooke still suffers the effects of his wrongly prescribed medication. Now he is launching a campaign to aid thousands trapped in the same nightmare. 'I have constant nerve pain all over my body, like a burning pins and needles sensation,' he writes. 'I also have tinnitus and can sometimes feel muscles twitching in different parts of my body. I can't have sugar, caffeine or alcohol, as these all intensify the symptoms.'

Photographer Natalie McCain, from Florida, said mothers who nurse their children past infancy, known as extended breastfeeding, are made to feel ashamed. The mother-of-two said she hoped the unretouched photographs, pictured, which show mothers nursing their children over two, would 'normalise' breastfeeding and end the 'taboo' that remains around the topic. She said nursing beyond infancy is both 'natural' and 'beautiful'.

Phil Kemp from Essex never got to marry the love of his life because Sarah died aged 27, just eight months before their wedding, of a blood clot thought to have been caused by the Pill. While blood clots are rare, experts say too many women, such as Sarah, aren't being warned of the risks — or that they are much higher with the newer forms of the Pill, which are taken by one million women in Britain, including Sarah.

Hayley, now seven, from Inverness, was born without a fully formed left hand. She became the first in the UK to have a cheap, 3D-printed prosthetic which lets her grip and hold things as normal. The 3D technique is now being widely used in healthcare to help make everything from new hands to replacement skulls. Last year, cosmetics giant L’Oreal announced it had developed technology that could lead to 3D printing of hair follicles capable of sprouting new hair.

College student Kiersten Miles, 22, from New Jersey, had been hired as a summer nanny for the Rosko family. Their youngest daughter, Talia, was diagnosed with a rare liver disease. Doctors said that she would need a transplant or likely die. Less than a month after Kiersten was hired, she was tested as a match for Talia and decided to donate part of her liver to her 16-month-old charge.

Three years ago, 77-year-old Stephen Metcalf (main) from Hampshire was diagnosed with heart failure. He became the first patient in the UK to have the new operation using a new pacemaker (inset), as he tells JO WILLEY. 'He said he'd been trialling a new tool to help place the pacemaker leads inside the left ventricle via a small incision in the chest, thereby avoiding open surgery,' Stephen says. 'A few weeks on, I don't have any noticeable symptoms, I'm back walking a couple of miles a day and I'm driving again.'

Stephanie Dickson (left and bottom right), 24, suffered from a sore neck, severe headaches and dizziness for around nine months. Despite having a gut feeling that something was wrong, doctors repeatedly prescribed her painkillers for stress-related headaches. She eventually went to A&E; at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh on April 5 2013 when her symptoms became so overwhelming. Doctors placed her on a drip, but she was discharged the following morning. However, the office worker (pictured top right with her brother Murray) was found dead in her bed by family just a matter of hours later. If she had been given the correct treatment up until the night she died, she would have had a 98 per cent chance of survival, an investigation concluded.

The girl, known only as Shahana (main and inset), from a remote village in the northern part of Bangladesh, suffers from epidermodysplasia verruciformis - also known as the 'tree man illness'. She first showed signs of being plagued by the rare condition when she was just six-months-old. Growths broke out on her body, but these quickly spread to affect her nose, cheeks, chin and earlobes. Her family are believed to currently be seeking treatment for her at the Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

Shehzadi (left and right), from Pakistan, first suffered from swelling in her left eye when she was just eight months. Despite seeking medical help, doctors from her remote village were clueless - causing it to grow even bigger. Experts eventually diagnosed it as cancer, leading them to remove it in a complex procedure. But the tumour kept growing across her face. And now her parents are desperately searching for a miracle to help save her life from the tumour. Her mother Musammmat Jahan, 50, said: 'God knows if she can ever see again. We do not know what has happened to her.'

The couple, who had wiped out their savings trying for a little brother or sister for daughter Darcie, took out an £8,000 loan for one last roll of the dice at fertility treatment. Against all odds, estimated to be in the region of 70 million-to-one, they were thrilled when scans revealed that Mrs Crozier, 34, from Grays, Essex was pregnant with quadruplets. More miraculous still was that this was the result of just two fertilised eggs – the four girls they were expecting were, in fact, two sets of identical twins.

Hannah Lyson (pictured), who has given strength to thousands of people by opening up about her battle with bowel cancer, passed away yesterday at her home in Burscough, Lancashire. Writing to her 5,000 followers today, her family today broke the news that Miss Lyson, who just this week won a Hero of Heroes award, died yesterday, a few weeks after she was told that her condition is terminal. In a touching Facebook post (inset), they wrote: 'Hannah fought so hard to get well but it wasn't to be. We are all so proud of her & we will continue her work to raise awareness that your never too young.'

The mother of a six-year-old girl, who is unable stand up due to a condition which has given her lopsided legs, is raising £65,000 to send her to the US for life-changing surgery. Freya Bailey (pictured, left), from Ruthin, North Wales, falls over at least 15 times a day and is unable to walk more than a few steps without a frame. Her mother, shop assistant Beth Woolford (right) said: 'I just want the best for Freya and to see her suffering is heartbreaking. She just wants to be like everybody else, but without help there is absolutely no way we could afford it.'

Karen Fratti was 28, living with her then-boyfriend in New York City, when she tested positive for HIV five years ago. She had no symptoms, and no suspicions. She merely thought she might as well add it to the list of things to test at her annual check-up. Now she is single, having broken up with her HIV-negative boyfriend. Thanks to treatment, her viral load is undetectable and untransmittable - but she explains dating with HIV remains difficult.