C-section rates at public and private hospitals

[nyonya35]

Does anybody know official c-section rate for Matilda hospital, and how it compares to private hospitals?

I have read a somewhat old study in Birth journal that says about Hong Kong for period 1993-1999:

The mean difference in rates of surgical delivery between public (mean(public) = 16.0%) and private (mean(private) = 43.4%) institutions was 27.4 percent .

If this is true today, I would go to public hospital instead of Matilda. Anyone knows?

[carang]

at a public hospital, public ward for a three day stay all inclusive it would be less than $1000 HKD. most likely around $500-750HKD. about 1% of what you would pay privately at Matilda (between $70-100K HKD)

[barbwong_130]

One thing to bear in mind is that the doctors in the private hospitals, including the Matilda, will do elective cesareans where there is no medical reason for doing one other than because it is what the mother chooses. The doctors in the public system won’t do this. The geobaby survey shows that over 22% of mothers had an elective cesarean this is not a small number to bias the percentages.

But rather than being a hospital thing I think this is a doctor thing. Some doctors have a reputation of helping mothers have a normal birth and others have one of pushing the mother to have a cesarean. It is very important to trust your doctor so that if he/she recommends something to you then you are going to believe them. In the middle of labour is not the time to worry about whether the advice you are getting is good or not.

Most of the public hospitals, e.g. Queen Mary, are teaching hospitals and so all the really complicated cases will already be there thus their cesarean rate should actually be higher. This doesn’t say much for the private system in Hong Kong.

[carang]

also forgot to say that the public cost is if you have HKID and the matilda cost is if you don't have insurance

[barbwong_130]

Another thing to think about is not so much the doctors but the midwives and nursing care. After all most of the time you are not being looked after by the doctor.

I found that the nurses in the public hospitals were terribly over worked with only a few nurses looking after a whole ward full of mothers. The ratio of nurses to mothers is much better in the private hospitals.

I believe that at the Matilda there will always be a midwife with you during the labour and afterwards there is a ratio of around one staff for every three or four mothers. This means that if you are having problems with things, say breastfeeding, the midwife looking after you can spend a lot more time actually helping you.

[nyonya35]

Thank you for your thoughts. My dr is Dawkins, and I am hoping that he is very pro-vaginal birth. It is also going to be my second baby, the first one was delivered in California, no C-section (boy of 4.3 Kg), but lots of intervention in the labor process like Pitocyn, Epidural, and even a bit of use of vaccum (although I did not need it). I really want to try minimizing any kind of interventions, but most of all I want to avoid C-section at all costs.

[Matty]

You can relax and know that you have the most pro-vaginal obstetrician in HK.

He was very proudly telling a story recently of helping a woman deliver a 5kg baby!

[carang]

poor woman! can't imagine it!