Former aides hit back at mother of octuplets

The list of people octuplets mother Nadya Suleman has alienated from her chaotic life grows by the day: a number of public relations handlers have parted ways and Ms Suleman fired a group of nurses providing charity care.

Despite providing good theatre on stages from the 'Dr Phil' show to websites, her apparent attempt to go it alone raises a larger question of how the unemployed, divorced, single mother is going to bring up 14 children.

Former members of her inner circle are lashing out.

“This woman does not care for these kids, she’s in this for the media, for the paparazzi,” nurse Linda West-Conforti told Dr Phil McGraw on his TV talk show.

Ms Suleman responded on the show, saying she fired members of the nonprofit nursing group Ms West-Conforti founded, Angels in Waiting, because they were intolerably negative and poor communicators.

Angels in Waiting nurses who trained Ms Suleman’s nannies said at a press conference that she hired staff who tested positive for tuberculosis and didn’t speak enough English to understand the training.

Ms West-Conforti said in a statement that Ms Suleman told her she couldn’t afford security for the home but that “Nadya was currently having a large new Jacuzzi tub installed in her master bedroom and a new dishwasher installed in her kitchen”.

The constant tit-for-tat surrounding Ms Suleman has kept the story alive two months after she made medical history as the mother of the world’s longest-living set of octuplets. But it appears to have won her few friends.

Ms Suleman has characterised herself as naive and too trusting of others, but those who have been close to her see it differently.

“They have a unique way of using people,” former publicist Joann Killeen said of Ms Suleman and her parents. “Manipulating people, getting what they want and moving on.”

No friends or relatives have come forward to publicly vouch for her. She told psychologists who examined her for a work-related injury and news media that she’s been too busy having children to maintain adult relationships.

Ms Suleman, who has no siblings, has sparred bitterly with her mother on the internet, and her father has questioned her mental stability.

Perhaps most notable is the absence of a father to her 14 children, who were all conceived through in vitro fertilisation.

Ms Suleman has taken a vow of celibacy, saying she doesn’t believe she should date until her babies graduate from high school.