Hospital Bills

~ Shauen holds Josiah outside their hospital room ~ When I introduced Josiah I mentioned that you can stay as long as you'd like in the hospital - it's a for-profit enterprise and you must pay cash before you can leave. I'm sure you're asking, "How much does it cost to have a baby in Uganda?"  Here's our bill:

• Normal Delivery Package (prepaid rate includes 2 nights' accomodation in a private room and meals, normal delivery with no complications, and a checkup by the pediatrician): $515
• Nursing Care: $13
• Accommodation top-up (we had one of only two rooms in the hospital with a bathtub to help with pain-relief during labor, so it was billed higher than a standard private room): $103
• Doctor's Fee (after the first hour of pushing the on-call doctor came and backed up our midwife - her fee is not included in the hospital bill): $256
• Lab work: $11
• Oxygen administration and monitoring for baby: $77
• Drugs administered post-delivery (not pain drugs, mind you): $129

That's $1104 total to deliver a baby at the hospital, arriving at 1am and checking out about 37 hours later. It's a big chunk of cash to come up with but God provided for us in amazing ways. Now we submit the receipt to our Concordia Health Insurance and prayerfully and hopefully wait for reimbursement (you know how health insurance is with their deductibles and out-of-network deductibles and copay coinsurances and whatnot). Personally, I think they should cover the whole amount. After all, we've saved them a bundle by delivering Josiah here instead of in the States! -Shauen