We rely on Medicare and have been pretty happy with the treatment so far. I don't know about having babies in hospital as we had ours at home, but I was in for a couple of days for urgent treatment. I didn't have to wait at all, I was admitted the day my GP referred me. They let me bring my breastfeeding baby in with me and looked after us both really well. I had a private room as well. Ds had an operation when he was 2. We had to wait for half a day because they do children in age order and there was a baby who had complications. I think that's fair enough, and since we only have one paediatric surgeon here it would have made no difference if we'd been private asnyway. Ds was in a shared room, but dh was able to stay in with him overnight. Dh has been in hospital twice, first was emergency so he'd still have been in public hospital emergency room if we'd have had private cover. Second time (yesterday and today) he was put in a private room on the ward and again no complaints. I think it's a bit different here in Tassie because we have few hospitals and few specialists. They give you whatever bed is available, so you can have a private room as a public patient, and you can also have a shared room as a private patient. And generally it's the same doctors just working in different hospitals. Also as I think I've mentioned elsewhere, ambulance is free to everybody in Tasmania. We would buy ambulance cover if we lived on the mainland.