I agree with Tash. Ring and see if they are on time. I usually do this.
And I make appointments early in the day. You can't avoid the Dr being called away to a birth, but I figure then there are less people waiting before me.
I went public and waiting times were mostly pretty reasonable (within 30 mins of my appointment time). There was one day, when we had to go to the doctor's clinic (most other appointments we saw a midwife) and we waited for 2 hours past our appointment time...they were running 2 hours behind schedule...by the time we saw the doctor DF was just about ready to kill someone! Other than that it was pretty good though, so I don't know if they had an emergency or just an unusually busy day.
My record was 4 hours and 25mins waiting for antenatal clinic! I would have given up and gone home but I was nearly a week overdue and desperate to get bub out so I sat there and waited (even though I knew DH would crack because I wasn't there to pick him up from work and he didn't have keys to get into the house).
I was told when I booked all my appts at 35 wks (I went through my GP until then) that they were so busy with pregnant women they were deliberately double-booking appts because antenatal clinic was only one day a week and there just weren't enough hours in the day to see all the women they needed to see. So generally if you were given a 1pm appt, you knew you would be twiddling your thumbs until around 3pm, then get a three-minute check (blood pressure, weight and fundal height) and then they'd boot you out so they could get the next appt underway.
That's why I stuck with my GP until she kicked me out. I don't believe women who are going public should even be at the hospital until 36 weeks unless it's a moderate- to high-risk pregnancy - if you go to your GP you get the exact same service, on time, and you can go bulk-billing (which I did with both kids) and it eases the burden on the hospitals when the area is experiencing a baby boom.
Just ETA: FWIW, the people I saw at the hospital for both my pregnancies were not Obs, just a doctor - you see an Ob once before you give birth if you're lucky, so I had no worries about staying with my GP, she was just as qualified and experienced as the random doctors I saw at the hospital
Last edited by Glamourcide; September 18th, 2009 at 07:43 AM.
I think its pretty common to have to wait for an OB at a public hospital. The midwife clinic tends to be much quicker cause they seem to have more MWs rostered on. I was spewing that when I did GP shared care for my pg with Phoebe that my hospital appts were with the OB. Stupid. I should've been seeing the MWs. I often had to wait 2 hours + for the OB, only to have them do exactly the same as the MW would have done.
I would rather go to the hospital for my appointments than a GP - I would rather be seen by a midwife than a doctor, and at my local medical centre the waiting times are often longer than those at the antenatal clinic anyway! So far in this pregnancy the longest wait I have had was about 30 mins, and that is because I was booked to see an OB (you have to see one at least once during the pregnancy even if you are low risk, don't know why though, the one I saw didn't do anything a midwife couldn't have done). They have the clinic open 5 days a week, all day too - they have to because it is such a busy maternity hospital.
I found with DD my OB appts were always atleast an hour wait past my appt time the most i waited was 2hrs15min.
The midwives clinics were also very busy and was nothing to wait over an hour each time.
This time round they have put me at their Panch clinic as the Mercy clinic is FULL yep thats right no room at the midwives appts AT ALL for me on the day i go.
BUT in saying that it works perfectly as i take DD with me and there we only wait 15min for the midwife... YAY
I had an appt with the OB and made it as early as possible and only waited about 30min.
It is hard with public and at the moment we must be going through another baby boom, just my luck as with DD there were 23 births in my hosp the day she was born!
GL with it all and i hope you don't have to wait that long all the time.
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