behind the scenes

People have been asking me some questions when I reply to their comments.

(by the way, if you have a blogger account, please go to your profile and check/ tick the box that says "show email address". What then happens is if you leave a comment, it comes through to my email and I can respond directly to you and we can have a nice CHAT :))

Okay then, moving along.

Baby monitoring in South Africa

Obviously if you're seeing the paediatrician, they always weigh and measure the baby.

Outside of those appointments, many of the big pharmacies have a little clinic (one teeny, tiny room) with a nurse who does wellness checks (all the stats), immunisations and also other things like flu vaccinations, cholesterol, blood sugar and BP checks. Nothing is free - the wellness checks at Dischem cost me R45 per baby and I've had my BP checked before at a Clicks pharmacy for R25.

Many of the larger companies (or maybe it's just insurance? because we have doctors who work in underwriting) also have on-site clinics operating at certain hours for staff to use (this is totally free where I work). I can literally walk 5 minutes to the other side of the property and get a cholesterol, blood sugar or BP check every week if I wanted to do so. When I was pregnant and had my one sick day, this is the nurse who checked my BP for me and told me to go home.

Back to the baby checks.

In some medical practices there are also nurses who do wellness checks and immunisations for babies. These are often more expensive but still cheaper than going to the paed.

We're now going to a new nurse who charged us R100 for the consultation but for twins, doesn't charge a double consult fee. This is unusual but I don't argue - less out of our medical savings account.

I prefer the environment of this small medical centre (4 GP's, podiatrist, psychologist and the baby nurse) to the craziness of Dischem.

What I've explained above is all PRIVATE health care for the 15% of South Africans (it may be less) who do have private medical aids.

I don't have any experience about the government hospitals and clinics except that the clinics are completely free IF you're prepared to sit and queue for hours and hours on end.

Our national health is not great. Just the mention of going to a "government hospital" sends shudders through us privileged folk :)

Yes, I moan about this and that, but I do know that I am extremely privileged to be able to afford a private medical aid. If we didn't have it, I dread to think what would have happened with C & K and the NICU.

Let me know in the comments if you want more detail on anything.

Now the baby food.

This is the book I bought at Sadia's recommendation and........... I'm loving it!

I'd never heard of Annabel Karmel before but she is genius.

As I was reading I realised that my kids have been eating really boring food!

On Monday I cooked up some chicken (with carrots, sweet potato) and pureed it like crazy as I was so scared they'd choke.

Tuesday morning they had this for breakfast (yes, my kids are weird - they like their veggies in the morning and their cereal in the afternoon) and.........

Kendra pulled her face as she does with all new food but she still eats it.

Connor? Connor loved it. He literally SMACKED HIS LIPS. Too cute - D and I left late so that we could see them have their first taste of chicken.

I asked Nanny Viola how they've been enjoying the chicken and she says "they LOVE it" :)

I'm trying a new recipe every few days - a different chicken one today - but I expect to have similar reactions.

I can't tell you all the differences she recommends (too many) but I do believe you should get her book if you don't intend to buy jarred baby food (a huge ripoff in my view).

South Africans - I ordered mine from Kalahari.net and it arrived on my (work) doorstep within 5 days.

The reality of twins - part 2 - medical expenses

Getting ready for my egg retrieval on IVF cycle 2 - got 5 eggs - pic taken at 7:01am (we had to be there at 7am) on 8 Dec 2008.

First of all, thank you all SO VERY MUCH for the great comments on my previous post.

They have helped me tremendously and I've been referring all my friends to the post, just to read the comments :)

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I've been threatening to do a post on money for some time so here goes. Maybe this will help me come out of denial because I've been procrastinating doing the budget (not normally me) because I'm so scared of seeing the numbers.

Right, so with twins there's always the added bonus of them arriving early. I didn't know this beforehand but prem babies have a whole other set of expenses.

Before I detail them, let me explain something. In South Africa you're either on a medical aid (medical insurance) or not.

If not, you go to a government hospital. Shocking facilities - you seriously don't want to ever be in the position of having to go to one of these. (Aside - I remember when we joined our medical aid years ago, they took forever to send us the stickers for the car saying in the event of an accident, we are members of such and such.... I almost screamed at the call centre agent saying "if I'm involved in an accident, I do not want them throwing me into the Joburg Gen" - it's that horrific) .

So I think this is correct (as my work involves a project to do with health care) but only about 4 - 5 million of the 43 million South Africans actually have medical insurance. Something like that. Which entitles you to go to a private hospital.

procedure room at hospital where I had horrible internal examinations
to check dilation and so forth *shudder*

We are on a plan that offers unlimited hospital cover but very minimal day to day cover.

Of course most medical aids in South Africa don't cover any fertility treatment so the R100 000 we spent last year was also out of pocket. I think there are two tiny medical schemes that pay something toward fertility treatments. Maybe someone who knows more will comment???

The way it works on my medical aid is a portion of your monthly premium (but not more than 25%) goes into a savings account which pays for the day to day expenses of doctors, pharmacy, etc. The rest of the premium goes toward risk (hospitalisation).

I'm in insurance (life and short-term) and I'm amazed at how people don't think about these things properly.

For example, if we had to go onto a better day to day plan, we'd pay over R2000 extra every month (it was R1800 just for D & M, pre-babies this year). Your savings portion doesn't increase by R2000 obviously, only about R400 - R500. So my thinking is why don't you just save that extra R1800 and take your chances?! See I know how these things are rated and I'm the type of person who likes the lowest monthly expenses but doesn't mind an occasional big expense.

You can see that there's really no point in us moving toward a better plan - it would pay for one paed appt and then we'd still have to pay the rest.

And thank the Lord for medical aids because my bill for the Caesar and 3 days was R23 000, Connor's bill for 16 days was R77 000 and Kendra's was R93 000. And that's besides the blood tests and specialist doctors - billed separately but all paid.

Because the babies were prem, they have to make sure that everything that should have developed until term (nerves, blood vessels and what not - I really don't listen very well these days - I'm too sleep deprived) has developed properly and was not damaged in some way.

Now these are God's kids so I know they're fine but you still have to go through the motions to get the official say-so. Oy!

Eye doctor
Fortunately Kendra was in NICU when he first saw her (covered by medical aid - everything in hospital is covered on our plan) but Connor had to go once discharged. R398 for all of 5 minutes.

They then had a follow-up appt at their actual due date (R398 X 2 = R796) and need to go again 4 weeks from then (another R398 X 2 = R796).

He said to me that "hopefully that will be the last".

Hopefully indeed!

Ear doctor
My hospital offers an initial screening at birth (R250 per baby) but mine were in NICU so we missed out. We were about to get Connor's done when we were out and my clever husband happened to ask if any additional tests were needed. Yes, because they're prem. Grrr.

So we decided to forgo the initial screening and get the whole bang shoot done together to save paying two sets of consultation fees.

I eventually took the babies on Tuesday. R900 X 2 = R1800

Normal paediatrician visits
They both went two weeks after discharge, and then four weeks after that.

R450 X 2 X 2 = R1800

Remember most of these specialists charge WAY above the rate legislated by the medical schemes act.

E.g. our paed's consultation fee is R450 - the medical aid rate is R350 so you're out of pocket R100.

Of course we pay for ALL these things out of pocket because our medical savings account ran out in Feb already.

Vaccinations
At our hospital babies get the first vaccination for free as part of the mother's hospital booking fee.

I've just checked their cards and babies should get 6 in their first year.

So I phoned to make an appointment and I was horrified.

The cheapest vaccinations I could find was R1275 per baby. I made the appointment at the cheapest place and we (nanny and I) took the babies yesterday.

(Interesting - apparently 60% of kids in South Africa die from some form of pneumococcal virus, whatever that means, but it was scary enough for me to say "go ahead, jab them!")

It actually came to R2600 because they also charge a fee to administer the injection.

Next shots are in 4 weeks time - R970 each - and ones after that are in another 4 weeks time, again R1275 each.

So over the space of two months I'll have spent R7 140 just on vaccinations!

Add the other medical appts and by the beginning of November (4 months after their birth) the grand total of medical appointmens is a whopping R13 630.

That's besides

any medication I get at the pharmacies...

formula...

nappies....

nanny....

night nanny.....

My word, that's scary. But thank goodness, I am firmly out of denial now :) Although the only things budgeted for were formula, nappies and nanny.

I read on a blog this week that someone in the US had to pay $6 000 in hospital costs for a Caesar because her insurance only covered a bit. Now $6 000 is R45 000 which is nearly double what the hospital charged for me to have the babies. I paid an extra R7 500 for the doctor but still frightening!

So tell me, what is the situation with medical aids in your part of the world? Are you covered for your fertility treatments (if you underwent anything), hospital for births, NICU costs, etc.