Public V Private Care

easterbride

Hi Ladies,

I am married in my late 20s and we are looking into TTC early next year. I have a few basic questions that you might be able to answer for me ~ forgive my ignorance in advance!

What are the main differences between private and public care?
Do you need to have health insurance to be a private patient?
Can you ring the consultant and pay him without VHI?
What is the cost of a consultant?

Any opinions or reviews of public v private care greatly appreciated!

Neyite

easterbride wrote: »

Hi Ladies,

I am married in my late 20s and we are looking into TTC early next year. I have a few basic questions that you might be able to answer for me ~ forgive my ignorance in advance!

What are the main differences between private and public care?
Do you need to have health insurance to be a private patient?
Can you ring the consultant and pay him without VHI?
What is the cost of a consultant?

Any opinions or reviews of public v private care greatly appreciated!

I take it that you are asking about pregnancy care as opposed to fertiilty treatment? If so:
Maternity care public is free. Private costs a few grand. If you dont have Health Insurance then its going to be very costly. I'd imagine no consultant would turn down a cash paying patient if you didnt have VHI. I know that private with the VHI paying partial costs of maternity care you would still be paying about €3,000 and they would cover the rest.

The main differences between the public and private is really more ante natal visits, with a consultant. You have no guarantee though that the consultant will be there to deliver the baby, or that you get a private /semi private room in the ward, it really depends on availability of both. My sister went private with her 3, (and you still pay the consultant in full regardless) The consultant was on hols for her first birth, did a phone consult with the midwife on the second, and she saw him for 5 mins on the third. She told me that public was the way to go on mine so thats what I chose for this pregnancy.

If you have a complicated pregnancy (eg, Gestational Diabetes) or any other, then the care you recieve in the public system is just the same as if you were private - I have an endocrine issue so am in the GD clinics and have to date had 9 visits with the endo doctor and the professor.

It can depend also on the hospital you think you might be attending. Some, you may not be given an appointment untiil 20 weeks, others call you in earlier.

Now, thats just my understanding, some other posters who are going private might be able to go into more detail with their experiences.

How Strange

I went through the public system when pregnant on my son and if/when no.2 is on the way I'll do the same.

The level of care you receive as a public patient is the very same as a private patient. That's important to stress. For a private patient the waiting times for visits may be shorter. You may get access to the same consultant and you may get more scans. However in the Coombe as a public patient I saw my consultant on each visit bar two. I never waited for more than 90 minutes and I got 3 full scans and the consultant did quick mini scans on each visit. In the Coombe there was a sign saying semi private and private patients had to pay for each scan. I chose to have public accommodation too and the Coombe wards are quite small comparatively; I think theres 4-6 beds.

I think a lot depends on your hospital as regards the difference between scans and accommodation. You can always pay to have scans done privately through a clinic if your hospital doesn't offer more than one. I think perhaps the accommodation is the one thing I'd consider next time although I'd really hope to avail of the early discharge scheme and just go home as quick as possible.

It depends on your personal situation; perhaps you have €3k or whatever readily available but if you don't and finances are tight go with the public system. There'll be lots of things to buy once the baby is on its way/arrives.

easterbride

Yes I meant pregnancy care ~ thanks for the excellent replies! I just find the whole thing a little daunting at the minute and would like to have all of the information before we TTC. None of our friends have babies yet so I have no one really to ask ~ so thanks for the replies I really appreciate them!

I don't have private health care ~ should I get some?
If you would like another scan, can you pay for the scan privately even if you are a public patient?

Neyite

easterbride wrote: »

Yes I meant pregnancy care ~ thanks for the excellent replies! I just find the whole thing a little daunting at the minute and would like to have all of the information before we TTC. None of our friends have babies yet so I have no one really to ask ~ so thanks for the replies I really appreciate them!

I don't have private health care ~ should I get some?
If you would like another scan, can you pay for the scan privately even if you are a public patient?

You dont necessarily need private health care - for instance, we had to go to a fertility specialist for a little help and nothing like that is covered under the insurance anyway so we paid cash every time. Once I got pregnant I was happy enough to go public. (more money for baby stuff ) My VHI for 2 adults is about €140 per month throught work, so its something I'm considering scrapping too. Sod's law would be that the minute I do though, some health issue would crop up with one of us .

You can absolutely get extra scans if you want them. A lot of the hospitals have scrapped the 12 week scan only giving public patients the 20 week one. Its a long time to wait, but you can get a private scan for about €100 -€150, and they can be done from 7 weeks pregnant. The scans are very exciting, but towards the end, they can be quite blurry as there is less room and less fluid in there to get a good picture. But you have plenty of movement to feel which is a consolation.

Because of the fertility meds, we had private scans done by the clinic at 7 weeks,(to check for multiples, which revealed twins for us) then a follow up one at 9 weeks (which unfortunatly showed one of our little twins didnt survive)

Then I went into the public system where they scanned me about 11 weeks and 20 weeks (due to the endocrine issue and the lost twin) but before 20 weeks until when you might feel baby moving, its scary wondering what is going on in there, so we bought a little doppler that we could listen to the heart beat from about 12 weeks on - very reassuring!

annamcmahon

The other posters have pretty much covered everything. When deciding if you are going to get health insurance it's worth checking the wait time before maternity care is covered because it's 6-12months on a lot of policies.

I am due my second baby this week with the first only being born last January and even though we have health insurance I have gone public both times because I didn't consider myself high risk and therefore wanted midwife led care. This isn't possible as a private patient. I was also shocked at the cost of private care for what I would perceive as little extra benefit for me or my baby.

How Strange

I've also heard recently of a few cases where the wait for semi private was longer than public so as a semi private patient you couldn't get an appointment until 16-18 weeks because it was fully booked but there were appointments at 11-12 weeks for public patients. Strange but true.

easterbride

Thanks so much for the honest and informative replies ladies!

Moonbeam

A semi private ward in Dublin could mean 6 beds a public could mean 12.
Out of Dublin this is not the norm.
In a private room I found you get a lot more attention,have an en-suite and the nurses offer to take the babies at night for you to get rest.
2 years later in a semi private ward there were only 2 showers out in the corridor and they were shared between numerous women,one lady asked for help with the twins and she was told that they did not have the staff to deal with it.

Private there normally is no waiting time for appointments and you will most probably get a scan at every visit.You also have the same consultant who if available on the day will also delver your baby.

Semi Private - You also have the same consultant for every visit.If they get called away for an emergency then you could be waiting all day ,need to reschedule or see one of the other consultants on duty..
The longest wait I had was 45 minutes with the usual being about 20.
You do not get a scan at every visit but you do at most.

Personally I found the shared ward awful,I was there for about 24 hours because thy could not discharge me until the paediatrican saw the baby but would have stayed about 2 given a choice.
Out of the 5 of us there that night,1 had twins and a c section so her husband was there to help her,another had a section and her husband stayed all night,dunno why the other 2s husband stayed but I was the only one there on my own and I found it a bit hard with my new baby and all these people around. It also meant no one spoke to me at all and there were no visitors allowed.
The one time I did go looking for a midwife to ask a question (baby was making alot of choking noises) I could not find one anywhere.

The midwives are amazing and if you can go through a midwife led clinic definatly do it.
They do a really hard job but you can feel that they are under resourced and over worked but still manage to provide a service.

How Strange

Wow Moonbeam your experience was so different to mine. The Coombe public wards are small by Dublin standards with 5-6 beds. Husbands/partners aren't allowed to stay in the wards outside visiting hours and a very determined security guard comes around to throw them out (if necessary!).

The first night there was another Dublin mum across from me. We had a little chat and shared sandwiches around 4am. The next day two more Dublin mums were there so we used to sit and chat while having breakfast, lunch, supper etc.

I remember this African mum just had her baby, a monster compared to our wee ones, we were amazed and she told us this was the smallest of her 4!

Maybe i was lucky and next time could be completely different.