Thing you have to remember Meow, is that long term hospitalisation/palliative care, in any decent sort of facility is unbelievably expensive.
Physio and rehab and those sorts of things often are not covered by medicare.
I truely, truely am not trying to debate HB, I guess I can understand the other side, of the worst case scenario and get why insurance is so important.
It actually is protecting you too.
I'm not sure what kind of injury you are thinking but actually all of these things are free in the public system. WIth the exception of head injuries (which would be very unlikely at a HB) the public health system provides many of these services. In fact up to 6 months after birth at King Edward (or with Community midwives at home) you can access free specialised women;s health physio.
Children with disabilities are also well taken care of by the public system at no out of pocket cost. there are costs in terms of the time it takes to attend appointments and often it stops parents from going back to work but as another poster said this would be unlikely to be related to place of birth anyway.

What kind of long term care were you thinking? for baby or mum? From what kind of adverse event? Usually the midwife, as a trained professional, will recognise something is wrong and transfer to your back up hospital anyhow, where the people involved are insured.

I personally would like to see more government supported home birth services such as Community Midwifery Program in Perth, the midwives on this program are indemnified or insured by the hospitals who see the women as needed and take over care if necessary. This is similar to the UK and NZ system.


It is sad that Australia is becoming like the USA, very litigious, someone must be blamed when things go wrong. I have a healthy respect for birthing, as i do for the sea. It is awesome, but it can be dangerous. And if it goes pear shaped I would like a good captain (midwife) to take the wheel and steer us into calmer waters. A good homebirth midwife has a foot in the home, where everyone stays if things go as planned (like they usually do) and one in the hospital should they need to transfer...as will happen occasionally. Like OG said, time to theatre is not immediate, even if you are in hospital. they can get ready with word from the midwife at a house, just as they can from word from a midwife in hospital.
ANyway, thats my 2cents worth.