I went public. I was young and didn’t have private health. From what I’ve heard, having private health can still leave you quite out of pocket. If considering private, I’d be checking what your private health covers for pregnancy, and what is excluded. I wouldn’t want to be stressing about paying for hospital bills when it’s a time to be enjoying your baby.

Public with mine, couldn’t afford private. Couldn’t fault the level of care I received. I have heard that there’s more choice, eg private room (which I would have loved!) choices would have been lovely

I went private as I am a nervous person and wanted it to be the best experience possible, there were also some horror stories in the public hospitals near me that lead to serious injuries (brain damage to the mother) and death of a baby getting given gas instead of oxygen.

Public with all 3 of mine – 2 uncomplicated pregnancies and natural births, and one complicated pregnancy with an emergency cesarean and I could not fault the level of care.

I went public and was very happy with all the assistance I received.

Thans for your answers,it seems public seems to work out very well!

I went public through the Midwifery Group Practice program and it was great! I had obstetrics in my private health insurance in case it was a complicated pregnancy.

We went public as the hospital close to us was a public one, with a great maternity ward. I was really happy with the way things went there. I even called my private health and they said unless you wanted to go to a particular private hospital, dr etc there wasn’t any real need to add pregnancy to my private health.

There seems to be little difference.

Public and it was fine.

Our town has no separate private. My sister has private and she had the same nurses and hospital as I did.

I went private, but I wasn’t living in Australia at the moment, and I felt safer that way.

I went public as we were not in a health fund at the time. I found the whole experience to be wonderful. The staff were very caring and I felt very lucky to receive such good treatment.