Luxury birth care - if you pay

By Martin Johnston

health reporter

New mothers at New Zealand's largest maternity hospital can now recuperate in champagne style - if they can afford the "business class" bills of up to $281 a night.

Rattled by private-sector competition, publicly owned National Women's Hospital in Auckland has set up "hotel" rooms and services for those willing to pay for the extras.

The Cornwall Suite offers senior midwives, customer-care assistants, a la carte menu and 24-hour service.

Partners are welcome to stay over in the large private rooms, which have queen-sized beds, en suite bathrooms, telephones, televisions and video players.

All that is missing is liquor in the minibar - it's a strictly BYO bubbly hospital.

The Health Funding Authority and the Alliance party have baulked at the move, which the hospital says is in response to demand and competition. It has gone from 8500 births annually to 7500 in recent years, partly because of population shifts and changes in funding.

Its competitor in providing hotel-style treatment is Birthcare Auckland, which recently announced it will move to a new, bigger building in Parnell next year. It will cater there for 1000 straightforward births and 2000 postnatal stays a year.

The maternity services business manager at National Women's, Peter Wyatt, said surveys had found that an overwhelming majority of women favoured an optional "business-class unit."

Meals at the Cornwall Suite would be hotter and fresher than those in the rest of the hospital, which could take an hour to get from stove to patient. There would be no "bangers and mash," and the dessert menu would have chocolate gateaux "rather than a plate of custard."

The fee is $168.75 a day for the first three days after giving birth, rising to $281.25 for the next three. A four-star hotel room in Auckland costs about $340, or $160 on the weekend rate.

The refurbishment of the eight-room suite, rising to 12, cost $290,000 and the hospital expects it to generate profits of $450,000 a year to be used in improving maternity wards.

The hospital emphasises that women staying on the traditional wards will continue to receive the best clinical care in New Zealand.

The national maternity manager of the Health Funding Authority, Barbara Browne, said the authority did not agree with hospitals charging women.

Hospitals got enough Government money to provide quality care. "We don't believe there's a need for a two-tier service."

Alliance health spokeswoman Phillida Bunkle said she disliked the development, but National Women's had been forced into it by competition.

A Maternity Services Consumers Council spokeswoman, Lynda Williams, said the new service was outrageous. It would mean rich women got a superior service and would avoid "the meals everyone moans about."