Delivering in Government vs. Private Hospital
The cost for
prenatal visit in Malaysia at private gynecologist was around RM100 per visit
without any medication or supplement (ultrasound plus consultation). Staying in
Serdang area in Selangor, I recommended Dr. Leong from Equine Park and Dr. Tan
Ee Ping from Serdang Perdana. Both of them were very well known for their good
service and careful examination. As for the cost for delivering a baby in
Malaysia, it varied from less than RM100 for government hospital up to RM6000
for private hospital like Pantai hospital for a natural delivery. On top of
that, if you failed your attempt to deliver naturally and change to cesarean
last minute, the charges would be "charges of natural delivery" plus
"charges for cesarean" and that would cost around RM10k or even more
in a private hospital.
Since I stay
in Serdang, the nearest choice of hospital would be Hospital Putrajaya and
Hospital Serdang. Hospital Putrajaya offered private service as "fully
paid patient (FPP)" and the charges for delivering a baby naturally there
is around RM2500 in 2012. However, there are limited place for delivering and
hence booking have to be made in advance for FPP. Shall you arrive at Putrajaya Hospital and
they are full house, they will refer you to Serdang Hospital. As for Serdang
Hospital, it was a government owned hospital with 8 delivery rooms. My 2 others
colleagues and I delivered here (3 babies) healthily and two of us had
successfully delivered naturally. We are overall very pleased with the service
provided. Two of our daughters were diagnosed with serious jaundice after birth
and they were fully taken care by the pediatrician after birth. My daughter was
under 3 UV lamp 5 days after birth during which I have stayed in the hospital
with her to take care of her. Luckily it was subsidized by government and the
total charges for the 5 days admission (with antibiotics injection, series of
details blood test, food and accommodation) was only RM85. A friend of us had
their baby admitted to Columbia hospital in the same year for two days and they
were charged RM1500 for UV light treatment. I hence highly recommended Serdang
Hospital as hospital of choice for delivery and baby care. It really save us a
lot of money for life to go on. We have paid our income tax anyway right? :D
Anyway, one
of the "disadvantages" of giving birth in government hospital is that
you will not be given the choice to choose a caesarian nor injection of
epidural for a no-pain delivery. Caesarian will only automatically be carried
out if the doctor found there was no way a natural delivery is safe for a
pregnant women or a natural delivery had failed and the life of the baby is by
then being threaten. I have read the
book published by CAP (Consumer Association Penang) regarding the side effects
and disadvantage of epidural and hence I did not plan to use it as well. I can
borrow you the book if you want :D .
I will not
say everyone delivered in Serdang Hospital will have good comments on it but it
had previously fully met my expectation. I will be delivering my next baby
there next year and let just cross finger and pray that everything will go
smoothly.
p/s: My second child was safely delivered at Serdang Hospital, natural delivery without any complication (thank God). We were charged for RM26 upon discharging the next day.
p/s: My second child was safely delivered at Serdang Hospital, natural delivery without any complication (thank God). We were charged for RM26 upon discharging the next day.
