Public Vs Private for Twins

[kavijh]

Hello Everyone,

First I should probably apologize for the long post ahead:

Recently we learned the wife is Pregnant with twins.

Our initial plans were to go the Matilda or Adventist Route. Our Insurance does not cover Maternity, however we estimated we should be able to manage the cost. (Say about 150K)

But now that it is twins, it gets a bit complicated:

Firstly: I have read that Neo-Natal Care can run into the Hundreds of Thousands in HK. (And of course with twins the probability of this being required is on the higher side)

Secondly: I have heard that private hospitals do not have the capacity to handle neonatal care well?

So my questions are:

1. Does anyone know if you can schedule a delivery in a Private Hospital? Deliver, and if neonatal care in required send the infant to a Public Hospital. How does this work?is there a chance the the Private hospital refuses to send them? (e.g. they say its too dangerous...)

2. What is the Public hospitals stance on Cesarean for a twin pregnancy. We have have had a few friends who have requested Cesarean's but QM 'Forced' them to do Natural Births (But the had singletons). We are pretty keen on Cesarean.

3. How early is a birth Automatically diverted to QM. (We have heard 34 Weeks. Hence cannot go private for 34 weeks and earlier... Can anyone verify this?

Thanks so much!
KH

[kavijh]

Sorry Just Realized this should have been posted in the multiples forum.

[Sweetblueberry]

Hi kavijh, I have no experience with twins... but related to question #1, our doctor told us that if the mother or infant is sent to a public hospital due to complications during/after delivery at a private hospital, the parents have *one* opportunity to let the public hospital know that they want to change into public care. Otherwise, the admission would be registered under private care and be charged private care rates. Have you posed these questions to the Dr(s) you are working with?

We left the private hospital tours with the impression that neonatal care is limited (at least the ones we visited)... there is no Neonatal ICU and a limited number of incubators available. I recall 2-4 depending on the hospital.