OK, amended..still hope that more mommies can give more stats... will try to send out tonight at home...
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I am delighted to hear from yesterday's National Day Rally that help had been extended to couples who needed IVF and family with five or more children, groups that had previously been neglected in previous rounds.
However, I will like to highlight that there is a minority group of people whose wish had been neglected. The group of the premature babies.
I myself am the mommy of a premature gal, born at 34.5 weeks. Her stay at KKH SCN set me back by fifteen thousands dollars, most of them paid by my medisave account. She was discharged 22 days after she was born, with only regular checkups required. With a big chunk of my medisave gone, I have to think twice before embarking on any plan to have number 2, lest the second child came early too, and required lengthy hospitalisation stay (which comes with a big bill).
And I am considered one of the luckier ones. From the premmie support group, I know of many other families with premature babies. Some of their babies stayed in the hospital for months, some of them required operations even before they are charged, while others are still being followed up for complications years after they are born.
Below are some of the statistics among the people I know.
baby 1 - SCN 22 days, $15,000 ($14,000 via medisave) B1 ward - no complication after discharge.
baby 2 - ICU/SCN 42 days, $30,000 ($23,000 via medisave) C ward - no complication after discharge.
As can be seen, this is definitely not a small amount, and one which shelf or scrape some of our plans for more children.
Currently, the government hospitals tagged the ward (and rate) of the baby to the mommy. I would like to suggest that for premature cases, the ward for baby be decoupled from that from the parents. Like what the nurses said, the baby receive the same level of care, regardless of the ward level tagged. While for us mommies, some of us may choose a high level ward so that we can be delivered by a doctor who knows our history (many of the premature babies' mothers had pregnancy complications), and whom we trusted.
The social workers also stepped in once the baby's hospitalisation bills exceed fifteen thosand dollars (during my time), and will look the family's income and see if they are entitled for financial assistance. I would like to suggest that the minimum amount of fifteen thousand dollars be lowered, and more grace be allowed for the family's income per head. After all, not only the lower-income family suffers when they have to deal with a huge hopitalisation bills, the middle income (especially those with small children or elderly to support) suffers too.
As for follow ups after the baby is discharged, I believe that they are being tagged to the ward of the baby. This can add on to the toll of the parents as they have to use their annual leave to bring the child for checkups and many of them also take leave to look after their babies in their pre and post operation days. Perhaps special concessions can be given for parents who took leave for their children's operations (and this applies to parents of full term babies with complications, eg, cleft lips, heart problems etc).
I hope that the relevant authorities will look into these issues, and hopefully the mothers of the premature babies will feel less burden, at least financially, when their babies come out of this world earlier.
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kkf/didi/mommies, sorry to play cham cham *sob* *sob* hand.. but can i have more statistics? cos daec's and mine's are considered as the 'better' ones... once the stats are gathered i will email to ST tonight after kate zzzz
daec, i already got a air purifier with neg ions at home.. hehehe.. good during the past few days when alot of pp burn offerings
bottling takes time. u will get the hang of it. don't worry. practise makes perfect 
