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Baptist Hospital

  1. #9
    davidcd is offline Registered User
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    Hi Gracey,

    A quick FYI for you.

    It was reported that today the Hong Kong Baptist Hospital very quietly increased their administration charge from $15,000 to $20,000 HKD without a general announcement. This also applies to mothers who have already booked beds.

    There are a few couples who are going to the Consumer Council to lodge a complaint. I'm not sure if this is something that only applies to mainland mothers, but it's something you'd better check into.

    The Baptist Hospital was interviewed about a month ago regarding the influx of patients they are dealing with... I think one of the official responses by the Hospital's chief executive regarding their deposit policy related to mothers who experience a miscarriage really sums up how they think and do business. Dr Raymond Chen Chung-I said "We will soon discuss if we will refund more to mothers who have a miscarriage, because it is very unfortunate,".

    He says it as if there is any valid reason not to give a refund. Those unfortunate mothers still had to pay for all their prenatal checkups & government birthing certificate, but they still keep their deposits. The Hospital will still fill that persons bed with no trouble, but they'd still like charge the original mother who's already miscarried.... I'm not sure if Hong Kong has the same law's, but it makes me think of rental laws in other developed countries... where if a renter leaves early, but you find a new renter, you're not allowed to continue to charge the old person even if they broke the contract... The law is designed to prevent greedy people from double billing... In this case, we've got someone going through a tragic situation, the hospital will incur no marketing costs to fill their spot, they've already profited from prenatal checkups, yet they'd still like to make more money in this situation.

    I'm pretty confident after having dealt with some of the administration and admissions management that when they say they will "discuss" refunding more, it was really just a deferral to the reporters question. Even if they do truly mean it, it's surprising it even needs to be debated.

    I should disclose, although my wife has residency for my country, where we could have gone and given birth for free, she still travels on her Chinese mainland passport. Ironically, while most mainland mothers give birth in Hong Kong to give their child access to the world, we decided to give birth in Hong Kong so our child has access to China in the future... we still carefully analyzed the cost, because I'm sure you'd agree, free is certainly hard to compete with. When we were charged over 15,000 more than we expected (in fixed costs, not in variable costs like emergency c-section fees), the admissions manager admitted that her staff who gave me that price (which I had in writing) needed to be trained... unfortunately it seems it was still me who had to pay for his training.

    They've got more mothers than they can handle, they've found themselves in a situation where the demand is larger than the supply, and it seems their directive is to milk it for all they can.

    I hate to use the word racist, because I feel it is cheapened in its overuse, but what I have been describing may primarily be an issue with how they treat mainland mothers. Our prenatal checkups seemed to be much more expensive than local mothers... and if we had an emergency within two weeks of the delivery date resulting in our inability to deliver at the Baptist Hospital, we would loose 40,000 HKD whereas anyone other than a mainland mother would loose 7000 HKD... In any other country this would be considered racist, so I have to call it like it is.

    I mention this aspect now to perhaps account for our difference in experiences, and to note that you may fair much better than us because you don't belong to the group of people they have discriminatory policies against.

    Everything is really great with our family though other than our experiences. I was almost tempted to just forget about our issues with the Baptist hospital because of the joy I'm filled with from having our first child... My wife of course has since forgot about it and moved on... I had the funny thought that there might be a lot of other people who have had serious issues like us but just left it alone because of the inevitable joy a new addition to the family brings offsetting everything else... As you can most certainly see, I'm not gunna give them a free ride on my joy ;).

    Last edited by davidcd; 06-30-2011 at 04:40 PM.

  2. #10
    Gracey is offline Registered User
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    Viewing the baby after birth is something like similar to a zoo environment, you get to line up in a long queue and get to see your baby for 10 minutes behind a glass window. The mother can breast feed their baby once per day.

    I take it from your description that you did not get a private room?

    I've asked for one, but have been told it's "first come, first serve." I don't mind the discomfort of a shared ward, but I am concerned that a private room is the only way you can have the baby live-in with the mom and breast-feed on demand.

    Did they tell you that you could only breastfeed once a day? Is your wife trying to breastfeed?

    I asked again, and was told that the mom has to "rest for at least 8 hours" before breastfeeding -- though maybe I should have asked for more details. Just wondering what your experiences were.

  3. #11
    davidcd is offline Registered User
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    My wife is breast feeding. I believe you are allowed to feed twice per day. Once at noon and another time at 4pm. They didn't offer any way to express my wife's milk so they could use it during the baby's bottle feeding time, but we didn't specifically ask.

    Perhaps you should take a manual breast pump with you just in case your milk begins early-on after birth. From what I understand you should keep regularly expressing the milk to both promote increased production and prevent backup/hardness/infection. Double check into this though. If you go this route, hopefully the hospital could at least provide you with sterile bottles so that they can actually put it to use with your baby. I know the public hospitals let you do this.

    There were at least two other mothers, even just in our room, who wanted to book a private room. The general consensus was the chances are very slim. There are no shortage of mothers requesting private rooms.

    If you're in the general ward, you'll be with at least 8 people. All of the other patients we were with were very friendly and it was nice for my wife to be able to chat with them. There are of course curtains you can close off for privacy also.

    I really hope you can get the private room, but it will be quite a challenge. Aside from the breastfeeding issue, I was really hoping my wife had more time with the baby for bonding purposes, but the hospital seems to have very little concept or concern about this. I was worried about my wife's feelings and condition related to being separated from the baby for most of the time in the days following birth, but as impersonal as it was, she was in such high spirits from having given birth that it really was fine.. so I am sure you will be fine too in terms of this aspect.

    My wife was just getting a bit stressed out before hand with all of the mentioned things... I had a bit of fun with her rewording the bible verses they had on their walls to lift her spirits... things like "Love is Patient" turned into "Love is Patient, especially when the meter is running" and many others ;). It seemed to get her laughing at least. You're already set to fair better than us based on your experiences thus far.

    If you have any other questions, feel free to ask... I know first hand it can be pretty difficult to get detailed answers from the Hospital.


  4. #12
    JoyousBaby is offline Registered User
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    Sorry maybe what I'm going to ask is off the topic. At HK Baptist Hospital, what is the brand of milk they give during bottle feeding time? As for SIN hospital they give bottled Nestle Nan 1 and feel is more hygienic as is a one time feed. they change new bottle each time. I'm not too sure what is the practice here. We need to bring our own milk powder or they provide? If they provide is it the bottled milk or they use milk powder?? Please advise thank you.


  5. #13
    Gracey is offline Registered User
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    Hi Joyous Baby -- I don't know the answer to your question. I think most people here are more concerned with how they will breastfeed. Just curious. Is there a reason you want to use formula from the beginning instead?


  6. #14
    davidcd is offline Registered User
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    They have a big chart with a lot of options, you can choose which milk you want them to feed. They likely have the brand you want.

    Ultimately, if you don't have a private room, you're going to have to choose which kind of powder you want them to use. I suspect that even if you get a private room you will still have to choose, just in case your supply is not enough initially and have to supplement with formula.


  7. #15
    JoyousBaby is offline Registered User
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    Hi Gracey,

    Just in case I don't have much milk as my previous 2 gals face this problem. So the hospital were bttle feed n I tried breastfeeding too.


  8. #16
    Gracey is offline Registered User
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    David -- I've asked again. The maternity nurse said that, even if I didn't have a private room, I could go to the nursery / feeding room anytime to feed. They did not set limits on how many feeds a day.
    They will not bring the baby to the mother in a group ward. However, the nurse assured me that if I was going through natural delivery, as planned, I should be totally capable of walking down a corridor not too long after.
    If I was really weak, they would happily wheel me into the nursing room if I was determined to breast feed exclusively.
    It's not perfect, but they did seem to accommodate breast-feeding mothers. And my doctor was happy to answer questions about colostrum, and having to wait a few days till the milk came in.


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