Hello!

15 Comments

Instead of calling an ambulance when she went into labour, Rati and her partner Jip decided to book an Uber as their hospital escort.

Why? Purely because it meant they could track the car’s location and arrival time, reports NEWS.COM.AU.

“I was thinking it was so early in the morning and there was no traffic, I didn’t know how long the ambulance was going to be,” she told 3AW Breakfast this morning.

“When we looked at Uber it said five minutes away, so we were like let’s just Uber it.”

“I’d never called an ambulance before, so I didn’t know how far away it would be or how long it would take,” Ms Sinuraya told news.com.au

“I was in so much pain, it was 2.30am in the morning and I didn’t want to risk the ambulance taking a long time to arrive.”

“An ambulance couldn’t give me an exact time of how long they would be, but with an Uber we could just see on the map where they were and get updated estimations,” she said.

“If I was picked up five minutes later, I would’ve been pushing out the baby in the car,” she said.

“I wasn’t expecting to go into labour, I thought it was just me in pain. But when I got to the hospital, they said I had to start pushing straight away, and the next think I know my baby was born.”

The driver was very “relaxed like nothing was really happening”.

“He didn’t look panicked,” she said.

“My husband was having a chat with him and looking at the map and how far we had to go.

“If I didn’t know the distance to the hospital, it would be very frustrating because of the pain I was in.”

Not recommended

Ambulance Victoria said all their vehicles are tracked from their control centres — and provide “emergency pre-hospital care” for women in labour.

“Ambulance Victoria paramedics are highly trained to provide emergency pre-hospital care and this includes the management of an unplanned birth prior to arrival at hospital,” Ambulance Victoria Acting General Manager Emergency Operations Anthony Carlyon said in a statement.

“However, expectant parents are urged to carefully plan the arrival of their baby and don’t leave it until the last minute to go to hospital.

“All ambulance vehicles can be located and tracked in our control centres through GPS fitted to all our vehicles.’’

Share your comments below.

Image via News.com.au

We may get commissions for purchases made using links in this post. Learn more.
  • I see her point. if gave her something to focus on and she could see progress. makes sense to me.

    Reply

  • Uber are great and sounds like she didn’t realise the baby was as close to coming as it was. For my first we had to call a taxi. It felt like a very long ride.

    Reply

  • We always drove to the hospital with our imminent deliveries – one was born 10 minutes after arrival. Ambulances were something we had never factored into the equation and couldn’t afford. However, all’s well that ends well.
    Still find it hard to call an ambulance – if you need to go to a specific hospital because that’s where all your records are, chances are the ambulance won’t take you there.

    Reply

  • Each to their own, as long as mum and bub are fine though I would have called an ambulance.

    Reply

  • I wonder what the Uber driver was really thinking lol. Glad both are safe & well.

    Reply

  • I would have called an ambulance instead of Uber.

    Reply

  • I don’t know about calling an Uber over an Ambo… I’ve had to call an ambulance a couple times (once after giving birth on my patio) and each time they were able to tell me how long and where exactly they were. At the very least the ambulance would have had paramedics on board who could have assisted with the birth if necessary. Also they do have a siren used to get through traffic. At 2:30am traffic should have been okay, even if it was a weekend.

    Reply

  • Obviously the Mum didn’t relaise she was actually in Labour.
    Often when Mums go to the hospital they are checked and sent home again. – e.g. I know one lady in labour was vomitting and could hardly move because of it, yet the sent her home. They reckoned they didn’t have any beds. She couldn’t have cared if she had been on a stretcher near the nurse’s station. In the end her husband them, said no if no buts they were going back in. Final result was an emergency C-Section.

    Reply

  • This is a story I have heard of for the first time! She must have not thought about the consequences, but it is true that sometimes ambulances do take a while to arrive and she might have not had the money to cover the ambulance fee

    Reply

  • That is something unusual. But if they didn’t have ambulance insurance, it makes perfect sense to me.

    Reply

  • I suspect she might not have been thinking all that clearly at the time…

    Reply

  • I don’t know anyone who’s had kids who’s called an ambulance while in Labour. We also drove – both times- to the hospital. Also, if you’re not in private insurance don’t you have to pay an arm and a leg for an ambulance. If people also weren’t expected to wait until the last minute to arrive in the hospital, then there would be less chance of anything going wrong. I said good on them for leaving the ambulance to those who were more needy.


    • After my 3rd baby was born before we got to the hospital, I looked up some figures and found out it happens in only about 4 in a 100 births.
      We definitely did not leave it too late. I knew I laboured fast, and had had advice previously that as soon as my contractions were five minutes apart get to the hospital pronto. In this third labour, my contractions suddenly went from ten minutes apart and making sure everything was ready to go to the hospital that night, to five minutes apart and calling our babysitter, to less than an hour later the baby being born.

    Reply

  • An ambulance would have been better, but sometimes ambulances can take ages to arrive.

    Reply

  • Stroke of luck that they made it in time and there were no delays.

    Reply

Post a comment
Add a photo
Your MoM account


Lost your password?

Enter your email and a password below to post your comment and join MoM:

You May Like

Loading…

Looks like this may be blocked by your browser or content filtering.

↥ Back to top

Thanks For Your Star Rating!

Would you like to add a written rating or just a star rating?

Write A Rating Just A Star Rating
Join