hi vianni, welcome to bb & congrats on your PG i hope you find a wealth of information on bb - i know it was a lifesaver for me when i was PG with my DS!

i had my DS in a public hospital in melbourne & will be having #2 at a public hospital as well. the biggest negative for me was the waiting time for each appointment. i would regularly wait up to an hour & a half for my appt. i went to a big tertiary hospital & was in the high risk category so that meant i had to see obs/GP-obs. i mention that because a friend who has gone through the birth centre at the same public hospital didn't have the same waiting times.

apart from that i was mostly happy with my experience. i always felt that i would receive the best possible care & that they had all the facilities to cope with pretty much any eventuality. the midwives during labour were fantastic & the ob that did the assisted delivery was great at doing everything possible to avoid a c-section (a positive for me). i ended up with a room to myself - a complete fluke really but nice all the same.

i'm not sure if there is a max time you can stay but i left about 38 hours after giving birth but that was my choice - i asked to leave because i wanted to get home. they hadn't been able to complete some tests so a midwife visited me at home the next day to do them. they also sent another midwife a few days later to see how i was going - and to help with breastfeeding.

i didn't have to pay for anything (well, the tv if i'd wanted it ) and i think the care i received was pretty good. overall i wasn't unhappy with the care but could have lived without the waiting time for appts!