Our Hospital Experience For The Baby

[OnMyWay]

I am sharing our hospital experience and costs for having our baby here in Subic.

 

We only had two real choices of hospital here in the area, Our Lady of Lourdes International Medical Center and BayPointe.  There are some others that might be fine in Olongapo City, but these were the nicer and more convenient choices.  

 

We viewed the rooms at OLLIMC and they were adequate.  Certainly not fancy but clean.  They have packages that include the room and doctors fees, but for some reason you can't avail a package with the suite room.  The packages only go up to the private room.

 

Here are the packages:

 

http://ollimc.com/health_packages.php?&type=packagedeal&package_id=66f9affc-0a68-5468-b353-00005ccbc3ff

 

Baypointe would not let us view the rooms.  That and the fact that our OBYGYN preferred OLLIMC (her clinic is there) made us choose OLLIMC.  It is about 10 minutes further from the house but not a big deal.

 

I wanted a suite room because it had two beds and a desk, but we decide to take the private room package to avoid any surprises with the suite room billing.  In theory it should only be a bit more (stand alone, the published private room is p1200 a day and the suite is p1500) but the other charges might be more without the package.

 

With Philhealth, the package price was supposed to be p50,000 for a scheduled cesarean section.  In the end, I was surprised that our bill for these primary services only came to p52,024.73.  I thought it would be more because I thought that many things would not be covered in the package.

 

A very rough breakdown of our cost for the CS, after package and Philhealth discounts is:

 

OBYGYN - p25,000

Anesthesiologist - p10,000

Room charges - p3600

All the rest - p13,424.73

 

The room was fine.  Not luxurious like you might find at the nice hospitals in Manila.  Good sized.  Sink area with some storage above,  Small ref.  Small TV on a corner shelf unit, with cable TV.  Most importantly, they had the Cartoon Network.  CR was OK but no hot water (suite has hot water).  Noisy aircon but you get used to it.  A flat bench type sofa thing that can be slept on, for the watcher.  The bed mattresses are not great.  Very hard.  The free WIFI worked fine.

 

Abby stayed 3 nights and our 9 year old stayed 3 nights as well.  The first night the baby was not with us yet, and I went home to sleep for about 4 hours and feed the black panther.  The second night I had them bring in an extra bench sofa and I slept there.  It was miserable, so the last night I went home again for another 4 hours of sleep.  I was in and out of the hospital several other times too, buying some groceries, feeding the black panther, etc.

 

Little Katy was about 3 weeks early.  She was already big and we were going in for monitoring every other day.  When we went in on the 16th, during the monitoring, her heart rate was elevated, so the doc decided to do the CS that day.  When she was delivered, they detected a slight breathing problem so kept her in the NICU and they put her on an oxygen tube in her nose for about 12 hours.  They said that that type of breathing problem can sometimes be caused by an infection, so they did blood testing for 4 days and gave her an anti-biotic.  All the tests came back negative so she was free to go home on the 4th day.

 

The charges for the extra care Katy needed totaled p13,862.40.  Our total bill was p65,887.13, about USD 1500.  Also, Social Security will pay Abby a maternity benefit, but I have no idea how much that will be.

 

We liked the hospital staff.  The nurses were good and took good care of our needs.  Even the janitors were nice.   The food they served was not too bad.  They were supposed to charge me a few pesos for the extra sofa and a chair, but did not.

 

All in all, everything with the hospital was positive.  Our OBYGYN is another story for another time.  Competent but she has a lot to learn about bedside manner and communication.

 

 

[Medic Mike]

I am sharing our hospital experience and costs for having our baby here in Subic.

 

We only had two real choices of hospital here in the area, Our Lady of Lourdes International Medical Center and BayPointe.  There are some others that might be fine in Olongapo City, but these were the nicer and more convenient choices.  

 

We viewed the rooms at OLLIMC and they were adequate.  Certainly not fancy but clean.  They have packages that include the room and doctors fees, but for some reason you can't avail a package with the suite room.  The packages only go up to the private room.

 

Here are the packages:

 

http://ollimc.com/health_packages.php?&type=packagedeal&package_id=66f9affc-0a68-5468-b353-00005ccbc3ff

 

Baypointe would not let us view the rooms.  That and the fact that our OBYGYN preferred OLLIMC (her clinic is there) made us choose OLLIMC.  It is about 10 minutes further from the house but not a big deal.

 

I wanted a suite room because it had two beds and a desk, but we decide to take the private room package to avoid any surprises with the suite room billing.  In theory it should only be a bit more (stand alone, the published private room is p1200 a day and the suite is p1500) but the other charges might be more without the package.

 

With Philhealth, the package price was supposed to be p50,000 for a scheduled cesarean section.  In the end, I was surprised that our bill for these primary services only came to p52,024.73.  I thought it would be more because I thought that many things would not be covered in the package.

 

A very rough breakdown of our cost for the CS, after package and Philhealth discounts is:

 

OBYGYN - p25,000

Anesthesiologist - p10,000

Room charges - p3600

All the rest - p13,424.73

 

The room was fine.  Not luxurious like you might find at the nice hospitals in Manila.  Good sized.  Sink area with some storage above,  Small ref.  Small TV on a corner shelf unit, with cable TV.  Most importantly, they had the Cartoon Network.  CR was OK but no hot water (suite has hot water).  Noisy aircon but you get used to it.  A flat bench type sofa thing that can be slept on, for the watcher.  The bed mattresses are not great.  Very hard.  The free WIFI worked fine.

 

Abby stayed 3 nights and our 9 year old stayed 3 nights as well.  The first night the baby was not with us yet, and I went home to sleep for about 4 hours and feed the black panther.  The second night I had them bring in an extra bench sofa and I slept there.  It was miserable, so the last night I went home again for another 4 hours of sleep.  I was in and out of the hospital several other times too, buying some groceries, feeding the black panther, etc.

 

Little Katy was about 3 weeks early.  She was already big and we were going in for monitoring every other day.  When we went in on the 16th, during the monitoring, her heart rate was elevated, so the doc decided to do the CS that day.  When she was delivered, they detected a slight breathing problem so kept her in the NICU and they put her on an oxygen tube in her nose for about 12 hours.  They said that that type of breathing problem can sometimes be caused by an infection, so they did blood testing for 4 days and gave her an anti-biotic.  All the tests came back negative so she was free to go home on the 4th day.

 

The charges for the extra care Katy needed totaled p13,862.40.  Our total bill was p65,887.13, about USD 1500.  Also, Social Security will pay Abby a maternity benefit, but I have no idea how much that will be.

 

We liked the hospital staff.  The nurses were good and took good care of our needs.  Even the janitors were nice.   The food they served was not too bad.  They were supposed to charge me a few pesos for the extra sofa and a chair, but did not.

 

All in all, everything with the hospital was positive.  Our OBYGYN is another story for another time.  Competent but she has a lot to learn about bedside manner and communication.

I have noticed over the years that poor bedside manner and poor pt communication skills is common with pinoy doctors. However,my experience with the doctors is restricted to the ED and Theater. Many times I have wanted to say something to some ED doctors in the way they have communicated workups to one of my patients, but I have bit my tongue. I guess it is enough that my guys with the ERUF are learning excellent bedside and communication skills.

[JJReyes]

Poor bedside manners comes from the medical training that confers doctors with the status of a "superior" authoritative figure. If you start asking incisive questions about procedure or treatment options to Indian, Japanese and Chinese doctors, it becomes, "How dare you question me!" You are suppose to just listen and agree.. I am surprised you encountered a similar situation in the Philippines. Their training is Q&A and through the interview process, learn what is wrong with their patient. That's the old school.

 

Did you have a relatively young, inexperienced doctor? My observation of recent medical school graduates both in the Philippines and  the United States is an over reliance on medical lab tests and the use of computer software programs to arrive at a diagnosis. I find the older ones are better. Some disagree claiming they are not as up-to-date with the latest. At least the older ones have more pleasant beside manners in my opinion.

 

I once had a doctor trained in India. He was downright obnoxious, but I refused to change because the guy was very good. 

Edited March 31, 2014 by JJReyes

[OnMyWay]

Poor bedside manners comes from the medical training that confers doctors with the status of a "superior" authoritative figure. If you start asking incisive questions about procedure or treatment options to Indian, Japanese and Chinese doctors, it becomes, "How dare you question me!" You are suppose to just listen and agree..

 

You hit the nail on the head JJR!  This was exactly the issue.  We would ask questions and she would act offended, like we were suggesting that she did not know what she was doing.  This was especially true when she was talking to Abby in Tagalog.  I later asked that all conversations be in English so I would be in the loop.  When she talked to Abby alone she definitely pulled the "superior" trick, but not with me.  We still have to see her at least one more time.

 

She is 35-40ish, probably Filipino / Chinese, unmarried, no kids.  I think she has a lot of delivery experience and CS experience.  She has a lot of foreigner patients (parents) from Bario Baretto so I'm surprised her bedside manner has not improved.  The majority of her patients are provincial.  She lives and has a clinic about 45 minutes north, and also has clinics in the Olongapo area, so she is very busy going back and forth.

 

The pediatrician she works with is good and we are going to keep him for now.

Edited March 31, 2014 by OnMyWay

[JJReyes]

When my wife became pregnant with our first child, we checked around for an OB-GYN who was experienced in Lamaze or natural childbirth with the husband present in the delivery room. To our horror, we discovered that the technique was relatively new and unknown at the time in the Philippines. Even worse was that 60% to 65% of their practices involved C-Sections. Our conclusion was the large number of CS resulted in higher fees for the doctor and hospital. The decision was to fly to California. Luck was on our side. The declining birth rate was forcing some hospitals to close their maternity wards. The Catholic hospitals including the Little Company of Mary were offering package deals to keep theirs open. I forgot the amount, but it was reasonable. The package included a bassinet and two weeks supply of disposable diapers. 

 

Our second child was likewise born at the Little Company of Mary Hospital. Both made their first trans-Pacific trip at age six weeks. It worked out well because family on both sides of the ocean wanted to see the new-born babies.

Edited March 31, 2014 by JJReyes

[alsuave]

I am sharing our hospital experience and costs for having our baby here in Subic.

We only had two real choices of hospital here in the area, Our Lady of Lourdes International Medical Center and BayPointe. There are some others that might be fine in Olongapo City, but these were the nicer and more convenient choices.

We viewed the rooms at OLLIMC and they were adequate. Certainly not fancy but clean. They have packages that include the room and doctors fees, but for some reason you can't avail a package with the suite room. The packages only go up to the private room.

Here are the packages:

http://ollimc.com/health_packages.php?&type=packagedeal&package_id=66f9affc-0a68-5468-b353-00005ccbc3ff

Baypointe would not let us view the rooms. That and the fact that our OBYGYN preferred OLLIMC (her clinic is there) made us choose OLLIMC. It is about 10 minutes further from the house but not a big deal.

I wanted a suite room because it had two beds and a desk, but we decide to take the private room package to avoid any surprises with the suite room billing. In theory it should only be a bit more (stand alone, the published private room is p1200 a day and the suite is p1500) but the other charges might be more without the package.

With Philhealth, the package price was supposed to be p50,000 for a scheduled cesarean section. In the end, I was surprised that our bill for these primary services only came to p52,024.73. I thought it would be more because I thought that many things would not be covered in the package.

A very rough breakdown of our cost for the CS, after package and Philhealth discounts is:

OBYGYN - p25,000

Anesthesiologist - p10,000

Room charges - p3600

All the rest - p13,424.73

The room was fine. Not luxurious like you might find at the nice hospitals in Manila. Good sized. Sink area with some storage above, Small ref. Small TV on a corner shelf unit, with cable TV. Most importantly, they had the Cartoon Network. CR was OK but no hot water (suite has hot water). Noisy aircon but you get used to it. A flat bench type sofa thing that can be slept on, for the watcher. The bed mattresses are not great. Very hard. The free WIFI worked fine.

Abby stayed 3 nights and our 9 year old stayed 3 nights as well. The first night the baby was not with us yet, and I went home to sleep for about 4 hours and feed the black panther. The second night I had them bring in an extra bench sofa and I slept there. It was miserable, so the last night I went home again for another 4 hours of sleep. I was in and out of the hospital several other times too, buying some groceries, feeding the black panther, etc.

Little Katy was about 3 weeks early. She was already big and we were going in for monitoring every other day. When we went in on the 16th, during the monitoring, her heart rate was elevated, so the doc decided to do the CS that day. When she was delivered, they detected a slight breathing problem so kept her in the NICU and they put her on an oxygen tube in her nose for about 12 hours. They said that that type of breathing problem can sometimes be caused by an infection, so they did blood testing for 4 days and gave her an anti-biotic. All the tests came back negative so she was free to go home on the 4th day.

The charges for the extra care Katy needed totaled p13,862.40. Our total bill was p65,887.13, about USD 1500. Also, Social Security will pay Abby a maternity benefit, but I have no idea how much that will be.

We liked the hospital staff. The nurses were good and took good care of our needs. Even the janitors were nice. The food they served was not too bad. They were supposed to charge me a few pesos for the extra sofa and a chair, but did not.

All in all, everything with the hospital was positive. Our OBYGYN is another story for another time. Competent but she has a lot to learn about bedside manner and communication.

We had our baby at Bay Point. The doctor was great, but we already knew her. The hospital was clean and pleasant. The price similar to what you paid.

[OnMyWay]

 

I am sharing our hospital experience and costs for having our baby here in Subic.

We only had two real choices of hospital here in the area, Our Lady of Lourdes International Medical Center and BayPointe. There are some others that might be fine in Olongapo City, but these were the nicer and more convenient choices.

We viewed the rooms at OLLIMC and they were adequate. Certainly not fancy but clean. They have packages that include the room and doctors fees, but for some reason you can't avail a package with the suite room. The packages only go up to the private room.

Here are the packages:

http://ollimc.com/health_packages.php?&type=packagedeal&package_id=66f9affc-0a68-5468-b353-00005ccbc3ff

Baypointe would not let us view the rooms. That and the fact that our OBYGYN preferred OLLIMC (her clinic is there) made us choose OLLIMC. It is about 10 minutes further from the house but not a big deal.

I wanted a suite room because it had two beds and a desk, but we decide to take the private room package to avoid any surprises with the suite room billing. In theory it should only be a bit more (stand alone, the published private room is p1200 a day and the suite is p1500) but the other charges might be more without the package.

With Philhealth, the package price was supposed to be p50,000 for a scheduled cesarean section. In the end, I was surprised that our bill for these primary services only came to p52,024.73. I thought it would be more because I thought that many things would not be covered in the package.

A very rough breakdown of our cost for the CS, after package and Philhealth discounts is:

OBYGYN - p25,000

Anesthesiologist - p10,000

Room charges - p3600

All the rest - p13,424.73

The room was fine. Not luxurious like you might find at the nice hospitals in Manila. Good sized. Sink area with some storage above, Small ref. Small TV on a corner shelf unit, with cable TV. Most importantly, they had the Cartoon Network. CR was OK but no hot water (suite has hot water). Noisy aircon but you get used to it. A flat bench type sofa thing that can be slept on, for the watcher. The bed mattresses are not great. Very hard. The free WIFI worked fine.

Abby stayed 3 nights and our 9 year old stayed 3 nights as well. The first night the baby was not with us yet, and I went home to sleep for about 4 hours and feed the black panther. The second night I had them bring in an extra bench sofa and I slept there. It was miserable, so the last night I went home again for another 4 hours of sleep. I was in and out of the hospital several other times too, buying some groceries, feeding the black panther, etc.

Little Katy was about 3 weeks early. She was already big and we were going in for monitoring every other day. When we went in on the 16th, during the monitoring, her heart rate was elevated, so the doc decided to do the CS that day. When she was delivered, they detected a slight breathing problem so kept her in the NICU and they put her on an oxygen tube in her nose for about 12 hours. They said that that type of breathing problem can sometimes be caused by an infection, so they did blood testing for 4 days and gave her an anti-biotic. All the tests came back negative so she was free to go home on the 4th day.

The charges for the extra care Katy needed totaled p13,862.40. Our total bill was p65,887.13, about USD 1500. Also, Social Security will pay Abby a maternity benefit, but I have no idea how much that will be.

We liked the hospital staff. The nurses were good and took good care of our needs. Even the janitors were nice. The food they served was not too bad. They were supposed to charge me a few pesos for the extra sofa and a chair, but did not.

All in all, everything with the hospital was positive. Our OBYGYN is another story for another time. Competent but she has a lot to learn about bedside manner and communication.

We had our baby at Bay Point. The doctor was great, but we already knew her. The hospital was clean and pleasant. The price similar to what you paid.

 

 

Generally speaking, I like Baypointe more than OLLIMC.  Newer and more modern.  I don't understand why they would not show us rooms.

 

We knew our doctor from the beginning of the pregnancy, and we considering switching, but it was just getting too late in the game to switch.

 

If you don't mind, can you PM me the name of your doctor?

[OnMyWay]

 

Poor bedside manners comes from the medical training that confers doctors with the status of a "superior" authoritative figure. If you start asking incisive questions about procedure or treatment options to Indian, Japanese and Chinese doctors, it becomes, "How dare you question me!" You are suppose to just listen and agree..

 

You hit the nail on the head JJR!  This was exactly the issue.  We would ask questions and she would act offended, like we were suggesting that she did not know what she was doing.  This was especially true when she was talking to Abby in Tagalog.  I later asked that all conversations be in English so I would be in the loop.  When she talked to Abby alone she definitely pulled the "superior" trick, but not with me.  We still have to see her at least one more time.

 

She is 35-40ish, probably Filipino / Chinese, unmarried, no kids.  I think she has a lot of delivery experience and CS experience.  She has a lot of foreigner patients (parents) from Bario Baretto so I'm surprised her bedside manner has not improved.  The majority of her patients are provincial.  She lives and has a clinic about 45 minutes north, and also has clinics in the Olongapo area, so she is very busy going back and forth.

 

The pediatrician she works with is good and we are going to keep him for now.

 

 

A little update on the ob/gyn that we didn't like.  A month or so ago we saw another one (recommended by Jon's wife!) and we like her so far.  She said she is friends with the old one (everybody knows everybody here!) and Abby was a bit concerned about that, so she reminded the new doc that we prefer confidentiality.  She was not the least bit offended and said of course.

 

We had to go see the old doc a few weeks ago to get her to sign Social Security paperwork.  She had been out of the country for almost 2 months.  She signed it and said "Good luck".  That was it.  Nothing about the baby, etc.  She knew we were no longer customers and it showed in her attitude.

 

Side note:  We are getting about p20,000 from SS for the birth!  Not a bad benefit!

 

The new doc is at a small hospital / clinic called Mother and Child.  It is a fairly nice place and they do childbirth there.  I would consider it if I had to do it all over again, but I don't know anything about the rooms and services.

 

The first time we went into the new place, one of the nurses recognized us and said hello.  She recognized us because she said she was at the Lourdes hospital when Abby gave birth.  In Tagalog she said to Abby, "Oh, you are switching ob/gyn and leaving "old doc"".  Abby gave her some reason or another and also found out that the nurse had switched jobs from Lourdes to Mother and Child.

 

Today we saw the same nurse again while in the hospital, and Abby chatted with her again.  It turns out she remembered Abby not because she was working the day Abby gave birth, but because she was also giving birth the same day!   (Forgot to find out boy or girl!).  She also confirmed what we had thought about "old doc".  She talks down to and scolds everyone, including co-workers and staff.  That was the reason this nurse did not choose her as her ob/gyn and she said the "old doc" was offended by that.

 

Anyhow, if anyone is ever looking for an ob/gyn in this area, pm me and I will tell you one NOT to consider.  I don't want to say the name here on the forum.

[Methersgate]

Thanks you OMW for posting a very valuable report.

 

All I can do is add a bit of history!

My oldest boy was born at Manila Doctors' Hospital in January 1995. My only other experience was my sister in law's delivery in Quezon City two years ago, where K was filling the role of "family" and I was assisting her and providing moral support to my English brother in law. 

 

Manila Doctors, 19 years ago cost from memory around  62,000 pesos. Private room, clean but not fancy, baby was slightly premature and the cost included a few days in an incubator.

 

Certainly fathers were not allowed anywhere near the process. This led to an amusing aspect as Ruby was being told that, since the father was a foreigner, she should have a Caesarian section  - cost maybe 110,000. She avoided this by yelling "He's left me! I can't afford it!" at which point the Caesarian magically became unnecessary.

 

I was all of about fifty feet away throughout the entire business, my role being confined to feeding thousand peso bills into the cashier's office...

 

Alex was 6lbs 10oz at birth and is now 6ft 

 

My recollection of what my brother in law paid, with FilHeath, two years ago was that it was around 50K. The baby was my SIL's third and it  apparently popped out with no trouble at all.

 

K's own delivery was in a public ward since I was not on the horizon at the time. Nor was the scumbag who was the father. She doesn't really have hips. She was advised to have a Caesarian but declined - the ob-gyn said "You are very brave" and she replied "I am very poor!"  She says, "It hurt like hell and one is quite enough!"

Edited August 26, 2014 by Methersgate

[Jumper0155]

It  amazing the difference in prices between the Philippines and USA, where the average cost of a C-Section birth is around $15,000 = 655,000 PHP! I think I am going to save any future baby making for when I retire in the Philippines and I'll just keep practicing for it here in the ole USA! :thumbsup: