Octuplets' mum phones Dr Phil for help

February 26, 2009

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By Steve Gorman

February 26, 2009 11:51am

THE mother of America's octuplets has told television therapist Dr

Phil that she fears not being allowed to take her newborns home from

the hospital until she proves that she has the means to care for them.

Dr Phil McGraw told the Los Angeles Times that Nadya Suleman shared

her concerns with him in a telephone conversation a day earlier.

Ms Suleman has become a lightning rod for public ridicule since it

was learned that she already was a jobless, divorced mother of six

living in her own mother's three-bedroom house when she gave birth in

January to octuplets conceived through in vitro fertilisation.

Ms Suleman, 33, also has acknowledged that she was collecting food

stamps and disability benefits for three of her older kids, one of

whom is autistic, and that a single " friend " was the sperm donor for

all her children.

The public backlash grew so intense at one point that Ms Suleman and

her six older children, ranging in age from 2 to 7, went into

seclusion because of death threats, according to a publicity firm

previously hired by the family.

Dr Phil, host of a nationally syndicated self-help show, said Ms

Suleman called him this week, upset after she had spoken with

officials at the suburban Los Angeles Kaiser Permanente Medical

Centre where the octuplets, born nine weeks premature, remain in a

neonatal care unit.

" What she is telling me is that unless and until she has a better

living arrangement, that they are not likely to release the children

to her, " the Times quoted him as saying.

He added that according to Ms Suleman, hospital authorities had some

concerns about her " ability to care for the children, " but he did not

have details about those concerns or what standards she might not be

meeting, the Times reported.

Dr Phil already had interviewed Ms Suleman last week for two segments

scheduled to air on his show this week. A show spokeswoman said

those interviews did not address the issue Ms Suleman discussed this

week.

Kaiser Permanente officials declined to comment on Ms Suleman's case,

citing privacy rules.

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