Octuplets’ Mom Tells Dr. Phil: Hospital May Think I Can’t Care for My Babies

An unemployed woman who along with her own mother, is already raising six children in a three-bedroom Whittier, Calif., home in pre-foreclosure, is worried that she may not be allowed to take her new octuplets home when they are well enough to be released from the hospital.

In a Tuesday telephone conversation relayed by TV host "Dr. Phil" McGraw to the Los Angeles Times, Nadya Suleman said she fears Kaiser Permanente Medical Center won't release the babies until she can prove she can take care of them, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Kaiser declines to comment specifically about Suleman, citing patient privacy rules. However, it is standard procedure, concerning very premature babies, to assign social workers to evaluate the home situation and determine what services the family may need, says Vicki Bermudez. A regulatory policy specialist for the California Nurses Association, she also works as a neonatal intensive care unit nurse at a Kaiser hospital in Roseville, Calif.

"If they feel there's a risk to a baby, they contact Child Protective Services and Child Protective Services would make a determination as to whether or not there's a reason for concern," Bermudez tells the Times.

Suleman relies on government assistance, including food stamps and disability income for three of the six older children, to meet their needs. At present, McGraw says, she seems to him to need further help to care for eight additional children, and withholding such help would only hurt the children involved.