Private Tour

I toured the other hospital today, the one I am considering changing to. A friend who works there as a midwife showed me around. It is nice and new, having only opened in June 2008, and CutLuce will approve of the colour scheme - very, very pink! Apparently patients are assigned to one of four teams of midwives (the teams are based on postcodes to make post-natal domecillary visits simpler).

Here are the pros and cons...

PROS

• I met several other midwives in passing and they all seemed friendly and nice.
• Brand, spanking new, clean and not drab and dreary.
• Fairly easy to get to from the City via two tram routes (one stops right out the front, the other requires a 1-block walk).
• Also easy to get to from my home (about 25 mins on a tram and a 1-block walk).
  
• Pedesterian access is good (especially in comparison to the hospital I am currently booked in with) - just walk in the front entrance and straight to the lifts.
  
• Private rooms with double beds are available, and some of them are beautiful - spacious with nice views.
• Nice courtyard garden near the post-natal wards.
• Post-natal stay rooms have baby bathing facilities in the room (plumbed in sink, changing area).
  
• Birth suites are lovely - spacious, with a private en suite which has a large bath tub, shower and toilet. Medical equipment and resuscitation tables are neatly hidden away inside built-in cabinets.
• Birthing philosophy is quite closely aligned to the philosophy of family birth centres - that women should be able to have a natural birth without unnecessary interventions.
• Seems to provide more equipment for use during birth (compared to the other hospital). The other hospital requires women to BYO things like hot/cold packs.
  
• Neonatal intensive care ward is co-located on the same floor as the post-natal rooms for the mothers.
  

CONS

• Tram ride takes 10 mins, plus a 10 min walk from my office just to get to the tram, means that the total travel time from work takes about 20 -30 mins. (Direct from home, the travel time will actually be similar - more time on tram but less walking.)
• Many of the private rooms are really tiny. (Especially when compared to the FBC rooms at the hospital I am currently booked in with.)
  
• Private rooms share one bathroom between two rooms.
  
• Chance of getting a private room with double bed so that DeepSpice can stay over is about 33%. Chance of getting put into a shared room (2 beds in each) is about 66%. (However caeserarian-section patients are always put into shared rooms because it is easier for them to manage in a single bed, so this changes the odds a bit, since about 15-25% of births are c-sections these days, but I don't know how to do the maths to work out the odds!)
  
• The hospital only allows a 48-hour stay and the clock starts ticking from the the time of the baby's birth. Discharge times are either 10 am or 6 pm. Apparently some midwives will allow a slightly longer stay. Eg. if the baby is born at midnight, rather than sending you home at 6 pm (after 40 hours), they let you stay till 10 am the next day (a 46-hour stay).
• There is a huge waiting area for pre-natal appointments and it doesn't look particularly child-friendly (if I am dragging BallFiend along). I have read in various forums that women often wait an hour or more for appointments as the place gets very busy. (Apparently evening appointments are better as it is quieter then.)
  

So after all this, I am still unsure about which hospital to go with. So for the moment I am going to stay booked in with both and hope that the 'right' solution presents itself to me in due course.