No gov. funding for home births in VIC?

[staceyp]

Hi all, ive been reading up on home & water births for a few month snow, am booked in at a low-care hospital (healesville hospital-if anyone has any comments or experiences here please commnt lol) but open to all aspects of the home; had a great natural birth with DS1 who was 3 and a half weeks early...

Would love a home birth and water birth, whether i can or cant isnt what im asking advice on but am i correct when i mention that the government in every state f australia supplies some form of funding to assist parents in having a home birth except victoria? i could be wrong.. but even if i cant have one, sholdne we put up a fight against that so people in future can have gov. funded birth at home? hubby and i cannot afford orivate health care, and so birth the public hospital-way.. iwould love to just be at home and have bubs... can anyone give any advice to what the 'laws' are?

i wish i could afford to birth at home.. sounds so silly doesnt it lol you'd expect it be the other way around!?

 

[ttc bubby no2]

SA has a home birth policy but not all the hospitals have adopted it. WCH has so I could have gone there as I am lucky enough to live in the zone for it although my zoned hospital is FMC. FMC have refused to implement the governments recommended home birth policy because of one stubborn head midwife.

I have decided to stay out of the hospy system all together (well I plan to go for my free 20wk scan lol) and have booked an independent midwife. Mine is $2500 which is a lot of money but I think very reasonable compared to many others. She is also super flexible with payments so I think that helps.

Have you looked into the midwives in your area?

Not that is is much help but you get 20% of out of pocket costs over $2k in your tax return. For me that is 20% of $500 so only $100 but every little bit helps I wish it was claimable on medicare though! Think of how much money we are saving them by not using hospital resources!

 

[Rmar]

I think the hospital in Sunshine is starting up a homebirth program but I can imagine lots of protocols and hardly any women who are 'allowed' to birth there. You can have some kind of rebate for independent midwives for antenatal and postnatal care so long as they are in colaboration with an obstetrician and there is only one that I know if in the Melbourne area that does this. They are not covered for the birth at all.

It probably wont happen by the time it affects you but you are more than welcome to write letters to local members of parliament and hospitals about what you want. If more families request it, they should do what is right and accomodate for it. They aren't going to bother doing something about it if they don't think anyone wants it. You aren't alone in your area.

Right now, it would cost about $2500-4000 for a homebirth. This isn't a lump payment. You can pay here and there and work it out with each midwife. Most will let you pay out of the baby bonus. They understand that it is a big cost and I don't know many midwives who are in it for the money.

 

[staceyp]

Hey i had no idea that midwive would let you pay it off (it makes sense though lol) but hubby still reckons its too much $$... when we need other stuff.. i understand that but seriously.. i cant risk having a homebirth without a midwife lol so will have to go to hospital ahhh well.... maybe for the next bub he reckons (thats positive i spose..) but unless we win lotto itll have to hospital again lol.. youd think it would be cheaper for gov to fund himebriths instead of hospital births cos they dont have to provide food/beds etc... and so much can go wrong in hopsital cos mums get stressed out... (i know htings can go wrong at home as well..) ahh well.. best of luck everyone x

 

[Rmar]

It is cheaper. I just wrote a whole essay for this for my course. I reckon that every woman should have a caseload midwife regardless of risk level who can be there with her wherever she chooses to give birth. In Australia, those that have a caseload midwife cost the system about a grand less than those who go under the standard model of care and not only that but the cost of looking after babies who are admitted to the special care nursery under the caseload model is about half of what the standard care offers. The study that went through this doesn't specify why but if I were to make my own conclusion, it would be that it is safer to have a known midwife. Don't know why the system hasn't changed to fit this.

Check if you have the option of a caseload midwife through the hospital. The next best thing would be team midwifery.

It hasn't been too hard to part with the money for our midwife. So far, we are paying $110 every couple of weeks (we didn't find her until 35 weeks, it is usually less) and then a couple of the baby bonus installments. I probably wont even miss the money once it is gone. I still see it as a small price to pay for the safety we will get. I know she is going to be there for me and only me for the whole time plus 6 hours after the birth. She knows exactly what we want as she sat down for a good 2 hours and discussed lots of options that come up so if we end up tranfering, she can advocate my wishes if I am unable to. Any questions that I ask, she has the freedom to find informations from lots of resources to give to me to make up my own mind rather than having to state what the hospital policy is. This has been really great because we were able to make an incredibly informed decision regarding GBS and Vit K which were things we weren't making any progress with before she was able to give us information.

Anyways, I think I am waffling, lol. Main point is, good luck and I hope you find something that suits you. Maybe because Healesville is a smaller place, you will be able to meet all of the midwives and have them get to know your wishes. I really believe everyone should have the option of a caseload midwife or a small team.