Giving birth from Discovery Bay - calling an ambulance

[Pekkie]

Hi Ladies,

I'm from DB too and am expecting my 3rd child, and he's due anytime. Here are my options to get to the hospital, depending on labour signs :

1. Ambulance service - 2987 7502 (this is the fire and ambulance service in DB, 24 hours and of course, you can call 999 too)

2. Take a ferry to Central Pier, then a taxi to the hospital.

3. DB VIP Hire Car service - 2987 1213 (This is direct taxi service, meaning the VIP Hire Car will pick you up from your home and send you to your destination, in which case, the hospital. The fare is $600 net. However, since there are only a few of these vans in DB they may not be available all the time so you may want to call them and check with them. You can pre-book, but in labour situations, you can never estimate. I use this service to get home from the hospital back to DB. The van sits 4 and you can don't need to get on the taxi, then transfer to ferry and then take a bus home when you're still sore)

Hope this helps!

 

[Balvo]

sorry just saw all these replies! I just called 999 for ambulance. Hire car is very comfortable but often not available at short notice...

 

[Portia]

Are you sure you can still call an ambulance to take you to a private hospital? Last month (27 Oct) there was an article in the SCMP with this headline:

"Ambulances set to limit patient trips to nearest public hospital
Phyllis Tsang, 390 words
Ambulances will only take emergency patients to the nearest public hospital from the start of next month"

I've lost my SCMP password, so I can only get the headline and not the rest of the article, so not sure what the rest of the article says. Maybe somebody else can look it up for you?

 

[jane01]

I have lived in DB for 12 years and have given birth twice at Matilda. So far as I'm aware, an Ambulance will only take you to the nearest public hospital. My experience was:
Baby #1 - middle of the night labour (started around midnight). I caught the 3.30-4.00am ferry (I think it was then memory is a little blurred). It was the little hovercraft type, really not comfortable when in labour. I caught a taxi to Matilda from the Central ferry pier. Baby arrived at 10am.
Baby #2 - labour started around midday. Caught the 1pm'ish ferry (from memory, husband wanted lunch before we left?????) and a taxi again. Baby arrived at 2.50pm. I cut it a bit fine ! The ferry and taxi journeys were very uncomfortable, but at the time I didn't realise how close I was to delivering. The midwives told me that my next birth would be a home birth (as I wouldn't have time to get to the hospital), but there will be no no. 3 for us.

Make sure you buy/borrow a baby capsule before the journey home.