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by mules » Fri, 19 Dec 2008 5:30 pm
3 words for you..... 'have it here!'
i had my first child at the RPA in Sydney in 2006. went in as a private patient and was still not guaranteed a private room. not all rooms there are single as a previous poster suggested. so if you don't have private health cover you have even less chance of getting one. seriously, there is a baby boom in sydney inner west at the moment, so my SIL who had her baby there earlier this year, got sent home twice during her labour and asked to come back when in truly active labour as they simply didn't have a birthing room available.
i had my second child in singapore this year. if you find an opened minded OB you can have a low intervention pregnancy and birth if you desire, similiar to a birthing centre in Australia. The level of care here in Singapore was second to none. Given the choice, I would have it in Singapore again.
Being a private patient in Sydney, my costs for the OB were about 5k. My costs here were less for the OB but had to pay for the hospital. If you have Aust citizenship as you suggest, you could go into the RPA as a public patient, give birth with the midwives (who were fantastic, and i have to say deserved to be paid more than my OB who walked in only for the last 10 minutes), and have a hospital room all covered by medicare. You just have to be comfortable that as a public patient you get whomever is on duty on the day you go in to deliver your child.
if you are thinking of baby bonus in au, you can still get it if you live here provided you plan to return within a given date, but as mentioned above it is means tested anyway come 01 Jan.
Also, have you factored in the costs of flying home to have it? And thought about the potential of your baby coming early?
Good Luck!