Ramblings: Our Health Care System

Earlier last week I was reading a post on facebook from a page about CDH. The page is from the US and the admin asked how much people had spent on the health care of their CDH children. Some were reporting figures in the millions!! This got me thinking about Tahnee and her medical history.

Here in Australia, if you are public patients (which we are), you do not have to pay for most medical services, such as hospital, dental, physio etc, but you have waiting lists. You also have the option of seeing a private practitioner, but you pay the fees and if you have private health insurance, they may cover part of those fees, depending on your level of cover. If you aren't familiar with the health care in Australia, this may be confusing.

In respect to maternity, with Lucas we opted to go through a private OB/GYN as public patients. We paid for all our visits with him, plus we paid for our 19 week ultrasound. Things like blood tests were bulk billed. We also had no hospital fees as we were public patients, but since our closest private hospital is government run, we were able to get a bed in there without paying any fees.

With Tahnee, her birth defect is considered high risk, so we naturally saw a specialist very quickly (plus, maternity tends to have shorter wait lists, for obvious reasons). We gave birth in a public hospital (it was our only option), and again had no fees for that or for the epidurals and other drugs for me. For some reason, we don't know why, we were charged for our first consult with our foetal medicine specialist. It was cheaper than having to pay for an ultrasound, but more expensive than seeing my OB/GYN at his surgery.

After that first visit with the specialist, we did not see another bill. The only other expenses we had were to pay for were fuel and parking (but at PMH we had free parking as we had a baby in NICU). CDH friends who went private had to pay all sorts of fees, plus they paid for each test (eg, MRI). I'm not sure exactly how much their total out of pocket expenses were, but I believe it was in the 10 thousands, and I don't know how much was covered by their private health insurance company. Now, we aren't criticising their decision to go private, just merely pointing out the differences ... and had we had no option but to pay huge costs, we would have done so immediately. You can not put a price on the life of your child.

Over at PMH we also had to pay for meals and drinks bought down in the canteen, but we were able to bring food in from home if we wanted to. Friends of ours in the NICU were private patients and they received food vouchers to help them out - one of the perks of private health insurance.

We never had to pay for costs that Tahnee incurred. Not the ambulance transfer, nor the anaesthetic, or the theatre fees, or the oxygen, or the bed use, or the nappies or the use of the parent accommodation. Nothing! In fact, while we were staying at PMH we received meal vouchers and had access to a coffee/tea/hot chocolate machine, microwave, fridge and tv, all free of charge.

When comparing our medical costs over here with those around the world, we are very lucky. Being public patients meant we still had access to high level medical care, but without the expense. It makes me very thankful to be in Australia, where the healthy care system, NICU in particular, is amongst the best in the world. And at a fraction of the cost that many families in America, and probably elsewhere, are having to pay.