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My experience at Union Hospital

  1. #1
    ozmerc is offline Registered User
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    Nov 2010
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    Hong Kong
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    My experience at Union Hospital

    I just wanted to share my experience giving birth at Union Hospital in Tai Wai for others who may be looking into a private hospital.

    I was a private room patient, so I had my own room which allowed baby to stay with me. Overall, I would rate my experience at Union extremely positively - they certainly exceeded my expectations and none of the trepidations I had going in came to fruition. I gave birth to my first in a private Sydney hospital and this was definitely a better experience.

    They took my birth plan very seriously and it was followed to the letter. It also helped that my OB was completely on board with my plan. I had a natural unmedicated birth with my husband and doula both present. I was placed in a comfortable side room to labour privately for about 5 hours with my husband and doula before I transfered to delivery. They attached me to a wireless monitoring machine so that I could walk around and go to the bathroom while in labour, which was a huge help for pain management. They left me alone and didn't disturb me much during this period (they could see the monitor results at the nurses station). The delivery room would not have been a very comfortable place to labour so I did not transfer there until I was fully dilated. The baby was born 15 mins after transfer to delivery.

    After baby was born I got her immediately and they honoured our wishes to keep her to do the first breast feeding and skin-to-skin contact and delay the weighing/measuring/checking part. They did not administer any vaccinations according to our wishes. After everything was done they transfered me to my private room, which was very large and comfortable. The private room ward looks like a 5 star hotel! My room was the cheapest/smallest and it was still very nice. Baby roomed in 24/7, in fact she even slept in my bed which was plenty large enough for the both of us.

    The nursing staff were excellent - very attentive and kind. They always came immediately when I called and they were very vigilant in the first 24 hours to make sure everything was OK with me and baby.

    The only major downside I can think of is that there didn't seem to be any breast feeding support provided, however I was doing well with feeding, this being my second baby, so I think they just left me alone to get on with it. But it is easy enough to hire a private LC to help you out if need be because there are no visitor restrictions.

    Overall, the total bill came to about $85K, including OB fees (my OB is not a resident Union OB). That doesn't include antenatal visits and associated expenses before birth which would have been at least another $10K. We paid out of pocket but it was worth every cent to me to have such a great birth experience. My alternative was Prince of Wales and I was not happy with a number of their policies so Union was my best alternative.

    Happy to answer any questions if you are considering giving birth at Union.


  2. #2
    tsubasa is offline Registered User
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    Nov 2010
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    Kowloon
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    Congratulations! Seems like it went really smoothly and beautifully! It sounds like heaven to me, but I am due on Aug 1 to deliver at POW (first baby) and anxious about it because I would like things to go similarly to how they went for you but it seems like I will need to fight for every little thing I (don't!) want. Sigh... It was mostly a financial decision. I am trying to think positively but my goodness. Why is it so difficult to just try for a natural birth and keep all the interventions to a minimum?


  3. #3
    rzylyn is offline Registered User
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    Dec 2010
    Location
    Lantau
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    2

    I just wanna share my experience with Union Hospital. My son had a major surgery in the hospital. He was 10 months old during that time. I really was very much disappointed because your only option if you have feeding bottles is to have it sterilized by them for 90HKD. I think that was rip-off. I brought my own microwave sterilizer to save money and just cleaned my own bottles, but they didn't allow it and said "only us sterilize for 90HKD".They also didn't allow any electrical appliance to be brought in. The staff was very unfriendly also explaining such and there was no easy way to communicate with them because most were in Chinese. We were also discharged with our medicines in Chinese instructions although they know for a fgact that we are purely English Speakers. Unfriendly service specially for Expats. If you are an expat, you wouldn't want to stay here in this hospital.


  4. #4
    Nenea is offline Registered User
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    Sep 2008
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    Shekou, Shenzhen
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    I also had a great experience at Union Hospital - my husband and I are expats, and we were able to communicate in english with various staff. I delivered via c-section after a failed induction, and even though it was not what I had hoped for, the delivery, after care in the private room, were extremely professional, completely accommodating to our special requests, and was overall an excellent experience. I would definitely recommend delivery at Union.


  5. #5
    ozmerc is offline Registered User
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    Nov 2010
    Location
    Hong Kong
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    rzylyn - sorry to hear you didn't have a good experience at Union. It may depend on which department you are dealing with. Giving birth is quite different from having major surgery (with the exception of having a c-section I guess). One of the things I found you have to deal with as a private room patient especially is the significant hike in price for EVERYTHING - you just have to grit your teeth and pay because once you are in there you have no choice. Especially annoying if you don't have insurance. I found even basic medications like OTC painkillers and standard anti-inflammatorys were ridiculously priced. But I also found as a private room patient you seem to have a lot more leniency to do things the way you choose and to insist on doing some things a bit 'differently' than the norm. I guess it's the price you pay.

    AngelaBoarder likes this.

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