no insurance

having just found myself in the family way. Suddenly discover that my current insurance will not cover the matilda hospital. . What is the feedback on the care in the public hospitals.?Are there catchment areas etc? Where is the best hospital for emergencies and not so straight forward births?

The public system here is excellent in terms of medical issues, the only 'lack' is it is not so personal or attentive to the 'luxeries' that a private hospital offers. But for the price, it can't be beat - a few 100 dollars all in :)


Do a search on this forum for 'public' and 'queen mary' and you will see LOTS of positive and helpful comments!


Also, find out WHAT your insurance does cover - nothing? a capped amount? only certain things? etc...


Congratulations on your pregnancy!!

I've written often on this topic.


I am a daughter of an OB in the USA - and was expecting to have top notch private care in HK - but husband's insurance failed to cover anything pregnancy related.


I went public, Queen Mary Hospital - and I had the BEST birth experience. (I had a less positive second birth experience privately in Seoul.) You miss out on the "exclusivity" of having one doctor see you continuously and "know" your case. If you have a straightforward birth - no problems. Most things are standard. A friend of mine was a high risk birth at QMH - she was assigned a specific doctor who knew her case inside and out.


You miss out on better food (have someone bring you stuff -the food served there is horrific), you miss out on having your husband sleep with you (I was too fried anyways and I think he might have upset me in the long run - in my second birth he stayed with me and all he did was snore and watch TV and make me mad), and it's not a private room - but it was my first birth, I made my space comfy and I spent it adoring my new baby and learning how to breastfeed her.


My midwives and nurses were stellar - they were with me through a very long labor process - and although overworked are incredibly good. I barely saw a doctor - a midwife delivered me and it was the best experience. I didn't want epidural (kept offering it to me as I was screaming in pain), I had a father in the US (typical doctor) bellowing at my husband via the cell phone to get me on a epidural immediately instead of suffering, but I was in control and I didn't have one. They allowed me to breastfeed while I was getting stitched up from my episiotomy (I said yes - there are mixed opinions about whether it is good or not) and I only remember total euphoria.


They also will take care of your baby in the nursery if you wish and will bring your baby to you for feedings if you want - I chose to have her with me the whole time, and she was only taken away to have shots, bathed or examined and weighed.


It was a lovely 3 days of privacy alone with the baby -and well - it cost me under $1000 HKD. Can't be beat. Standard of care was very very similar to the US style of care as well - My father asked what was happening at each stage and agreed that they were taking good care of me.


you'll hear horror stories of people who went public and you'll hear some of people who went private. But if you have to do public, it's not a bad way to go at all.

Don't worry about public hospitals, and remember even if you go private and there are big complications you will get sent to public hospital anyway.


My wife recently gave birth at a public hospital and the care was amazing. In fact as I mentioned in another post some friends of mine gave birth in public hospital for baby no.1, then used Matilda for baby no.2 and didn't like it so went back to public for baby no.3.


For us the total cost of the birth and stay in public hospital was $350 and that has to be one of the biggest bargains in the world for the care and professionalism you receive.

I had my baby at Queen Mary 7 months ago. It was fine- I have a healthy baby which is the most important thing. I had a complicated natural delivery- failed vacuum and then a forceps delivery- I wonder how this would have went at a private hospital as I've heard they don't deal well with complications. I describe it as going camping or flying economy class overseas! It's rough, but it ends. Don't expect to be hand- held, waited on hand and foot, you will need to ask lots of questions to keep up with what they are doing to you and i would question some of the guidance you are given regarding feeding the baby - I ended up with cracked nipples before I even left the hospital as the nurses told me to let the baby suck as much as she wanted- big mistake!! If it's your first baby, you are going public and will breastfeed, consider getting someone from Annerly midwives to visit you during the visiting hours to help with latching on and to answer any other questions you will have. There are no catchment areas and Queen Mary Hospital is a teaching hopsital- linked with Hong Kong university and I've heard that's the place to be for complications (like mine). The lady in the delivery room next door to mine started hemmorraging after the birth (why I couldn't get a doctor to help me when I needed one) and she looked fine when I saw her a few days later at a baby checkup appointment. Good luck.

Although I am seeing a private doctor, I registered at Queen Mary Hospital a couple of weeks ago. My first visit was fine and I find the staff quite friendly. But when I went back for my first doctor's appointment, I was a bit horrified. The doctor who saw me looked like she's 18 and she had to use a booklet to make sure she asked me all the necessary questions. Then when I asked her a couple of questions, she looked unsure and had to ask the nurses. Not feeling comfortable at all, I went to see my private doctor the very next day. I understand QMH has the best equipment, but if someone who's very inexperienced delivers my baby, I am not sure how comfortable I'll be... Any thoughts?

dont do it. You are not a training dummy. Ask to change doctors or consider elsewhere. Good luck:)

All doctors have to train sometime. If no one gives them a chance to practice then there won't be any doctors for the future. I had no problem with being seen and asked questions by students and trainee doctors throughout my pregnancy. I even had 2 male students present during delivery!


In some ways the question booklet was probably a promt for her english, to make sure she got all the questions right in the language that probably isn't her first language. I'd find that reasurring in some ways. And better that she asks others for help with questions rather than bluffing it.


Yes, you will need more patience with the public system. And you won't get to know your doctors. But remember, if they aren't suitably qualified they are always supervised and you can ask to see their supervisor. HKU has a reputation to protect, it's not going to let imbiciles who've not even practiced injections on oranges loose on women having babies.


If I was still living in HK I'd have absolutely no issue with going through the public system again.

>Spicegal - Funny you mention "imbiciles who've not even practiced injections on oranges loose on women having babies." Unfortunately that was exactly my experience at QMH - after 3 attempts at digging around in my hand for a vein for the IV I demanded the trainee doctor get me a proper doctor - my contractions were a minute apart at this point, no-one was available to give me any drugs so I wasn't feeling particularly accommodating or tolerant. Yes they do need to train somewhere but I experienced incompetence that was quite shocking.

As for getting a doctor - what doctor??? There was no doctor present when I gave birth, the midwives were still setting up the bed whilst I was giving birth (because no-one would believe that I was about to give birth - there was a staff shortage). I also had the students which I didn't mind but I also had an audience of those old women who apparently are there to "help" but in my experience did little more that completely p*ss me off.

My baby was in distress but no-one seemed to figure that out until after the birth. Suddenly he was carted off without anyone telling me why. Communication sucks big time at QMH.

I finally had a doctor see me due to my high blood pressure (probably due to the stress of being surrounded by such incompetence!) and he couldn't even work out which foot was my right or left. It was such a comedy of errors but at the time I certainly wasn't laughing.

Regarding the quality of your checkups - if you have a straight forward pregnancy then for the majority of it you see student doctors (the last couple of checkups were with a qualified doctor). I found that getting info out of them was like getting blood out of a stone and when I did get info it was wrong. I asked one of them whether I could take a certain type of tablet for a cold - the first answer was yes but I could tell that the student doctor had no idea. I pushed the point and asked him to check with the supervising doctor and then the answer was no. My advice would be to continue seeing your private doctor in addition to the public system. Make sure you inform yourself as you will be given little guidance in the public system - not sure if there's a face/language problem.

Breastfeeding advice is either wrong or non existent - I was also told to keep feeding as long as possible and another one of those old "helpful" ladies told me that obviuosly I wasn't feeding my baby enough, otherwise why would he be crying. Horrible - yep thanks for those cracked nipples a week later...

My experience sucked BIG time but I hope that it's just luck of the draw - I would hate to think that my experince was normal.