5 mos pregnant & desperately seeking hospital near TKO

N

Newbie_hk

Registered User
Hi Geomums,

I'm nearly 5 months through my pregnancy and I'm re-evaluating my options for delivery as I've had a traumatic experience with the nearest public hospital to my place, United Christian Hospital. See thread http://www.geobaby.com/forum/thread148317.html

As my insurance will not cover this pregnancy due to the 10 month waiting period (we just arrived 4 weeks ago), my original plan was to have a mix of antenatal care with Annerley and go public with UCH for my delivery. But my not so good experience at UCH has thrown me bigtime and now I feel that I'm back to square one. I was so disheartened that I thought I'll just do away with hospitals and have a homebirth instead but I know that's quite tricky here

MY QUESTIONS ARE:
Which comes first, book the doctor or the hospital?
Any recommendations near Tseung Kwan O?


Many thanks Geomum!

Newbie HK
 
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I have no idea about hospitals near where you live but I did not want to deliver at the nearest hospital to me (Tuen Mun) because I head heard some bad things about it so went to a private OB for a check up and asked him to write me a referral for Queen Mary hospital and prince of Wales hospital. Queen Mary did not accept this as it was out of the catchmnt area but Prince of Wales had no issues and I delivered there. This may be an option for you if you do not have insurance for private hospitals.


Sorry, just read your other post and you may find the same things in PWH!
Good luck
 
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if you go public then you don't get to choose the doctor so you'd have to book the hospital first (private is the other way around)...are you seeing an OBGYN privately? they can probably write you a referral to get you in more efficiently than you trying yourself.
 
Newbie at the mch in hang hau I remember seeing a notice that women from the area could also register at
queen Elizabeth. I didn't pay attention at the time but maybe you could go to Qe and try to register there. I did the Oscar test for the baby there and because it's a bigger teaching hospital I think the doctors would be more experienced plus they would be more used to foreigners. Not as much as queen Mary but might be better than uch. Worst case, uch is not that bad... Good luck
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Prince of Wales is quite a decent tertiary hospital with good medical facilities - on par with Queen Mary Hospital. The department there has a good reputation internationally with research and medical advances, probably more so than Queen Mary. I guess being a public hospital, you will still end up with the "no frills" issues, but at least you'll know that you're well looked after medically.
 
Hi, I am technically in the catchement area for united christian, but i didn't realise & registered at prince of wales - they didn't have a problem with that. the only thing is that they refused to do my mchc checks at hang hau, so i go to ma on shan for them (thankfully i work nearby, so it's not inconvenient to do this).
 
Thanks all you GeoMums for your reply. I'm still undecided that it even crossed my mind to just go home to Sydney and give birth there (it is cheaper to fly with all the costs here). But realistically speaking we live here now so I will probably just do my antenatal at a private clinic and perhaps try to extend my labour with a midwife at home until I absolutely have to go to a public hospital.
 
Sorry that this is a bit of a late reply. If you are in Tsueng Kwan O, I recommend that you try Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital in Chai Wan--it's not a very far train trip from TKO to Chai Wan as you can take the purple line across the harbor and get off at Quarry Bay and switch lines--the entire trip will take less than 20 minutes by train and the hospital is less than 5 minutes by either minibus or taxi from the Chai Wan station.

There may be other hospitals that are closer to where you live in the Kowloon area but I doubt that they will give you much trouble if you try to register at PYNH. Bring proof of your residence with you (recent water bill, bank statement etc. with your name and address on it). They never asked to see mine. I use my parents-in-law's address in Shau Kei Wan to register as I used to live there (and often still stay there for days at a time) and my name is on official mail that I receive there. I live in the New Territories and am in the Tuen Mun hospital catchment area but after I suffered a miscarriage and was hospitalized there this past spring I vowed that I would do my best to never darken that hospital's doors again--it was a traumatic and awful experience with the staff there.

I've been seeing a private doctor but for the major tests etc. I've been going to Pamela Youde for checkups and it has been overall a decent experience. The hospital is fairly new. I find it interesting that they use a lot of sky lighting because this is often found at hospitals in the States because natural sunlight is known to promote health and healing. Also, this hospital isn't as crowded as many of the other public hospitals so wait times for appointments are relatively short--I think the longest I've ever waited for an appointment with the doctor was probably 30 minutes (and for the public hospital, that's quite speedy!)

To register, just go to a private doctor first. (If you need recommendations there are plenty of them on this website or you can PM me for recommendations for the doctors I've seen). At the private doctor, they will conduct and ultrasound and confirm your pregnancy. Ask the doctor to write you a recommendation for the public hospital. He/She will give you a letter stating that you are 1) pregnant 2) when your due date is and 3) asking the hospital to register you. If you already have all this documentation all you need to do is go to the hospital and ask at the information desk where to register--it's a quick process and you'll have your first "check-up" that day--which will basically just be a urine test, weight check and blood pressure screening. For subsequent checkups they will ask you to bring in your own urine sample in a bottle but I never remember to do that so they'll just give you a test strip and send you to the bathroom with it.

Anyway, if you're thinking about using the public hospital in HK, I think PYNH is a good bet. They are very equipped and I've heard testimony from women who have given birth there under difficult circumstances and were completely satisfied with the care they received.

Hope you find a good place soon :)
 
A friend who delivered at Pamela Youde in 2009 told me that they have the option of semiprivate rooms for a bit extra payment (aroudn 1000hkd a night). She said you can ask about it when you go in for labour. I asked at UCH and they said they didn't have it. So that's another plus for the Pamela Youde idea.
 
I'd heard great things about PY, ESPECIALLY the semiprivate rooms (I think that the total cost for delivery and 3 day stay ends up around $7000). My friend delivered there and at the time, the room was ONLY her in it - in a four bed room with a shared bathroom (which ended up being a private bathroom for her!). It was at the time brand new, very clean and nice looking. I was booked in there for my 2nd child who was due in July/August this year but we knew in advance that she would need NICU so we decided to give birth at Queen Mary instead (my first was born there in October '08 as well). But I was really looking forward to PY! Ah well, maybe next time...

I do think though that if you are in TKO you are not in the catchment area for PY so unless you lied about your home address, you probably wouldn't be able to use that hospital.
 
nicolejoy said:
so unless you lied about your home address, you probably wouldn't be able to use that hospital.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily so. There are quite a few expats who request to be in a specific hospital and have no problems getting in. Sometimes you need a note from your doctor but honestly, they never asked me about any of it. I would still check out PY. Also, they have an NICU at PY.
 
Yes they have a NICU but depending on the severity of what is wrong, the baby may need to be sent to a better hospital - and my daughter definitely would have been sent to QMH. Their NICU is probably fine though for babies who are born early and just need a few weeks or so more growing before they are ready to come home.

I know from my experience that the hospitals are pretty strict about the catchment areas unless there is a medical reason to make an exception (not just a hospital preference). Even when I was told to go to QMH, I was questioned as to why I was there when I didn't live in the catchment area - but I had a medical transfer from PY which is why I was allowed. (although I would have rather been in PY if it was just for me, but QMH was the best place for my girl)
 
Just like everything else with the public hospitals, I think it depends on when you go, who you happen to talk to and who is on shift at that specific time--oh, and what hospital you're dealing with. They literally did not seem to care where I lived. Also, PY is not as busy as many of the other hospitals so that may be the reason why they didn't seem as concerned about whether or not I was in the catchment area. I know of several expat women who recently went to other public hospitals to have their babies but not for medical reasons so as I said, it just depends on your "luck."
 
Probably QMH is more strict than the others because more people want to go there (generally speaking)... I know I used my FIL's address to get in there (like you, I had lived with him when we first moved to Hong Kong but moved out before I got pregnant). Looking back, I wish I would have gone to PY where I should have gone anyway! But at the time, I had heard a lot about QMH and nothing about PY so I was doing what I thought was best...
 
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