Hospital costs

Martin is still in hospital and looks like he will be for some days yet. He is waiting on the result of a blood culture before being allowed home. He had the catheter removed a few days ago, but was unable to urinate, so it was replaced. He has been moved out of the single ward and into a four bed ward because the bed was needed for a post operative patient, Yesterday I did some more work at his unit and in the mailbox was a bill from the St John’s Ambulance Service for $418.

On the evening that Martin was admitted to Rockingham Hospital he called an ambulance. The dispatch person asked him to describe his situation to another person, presumably a nurse, and was told that his case was not an emergency. He then rang us and we drove down to his place and took him to Rockingham Hospital. Whilst waiting outside his unit for us, an ambulance arrived. He told the ambos the story and they drove off. They told Martin that they were returning from another job and would not do any paperwork on his call.

I will give Martin the bill today and he can explain it to the ambulance service. If they are not nice about this, I guess we will help with the payment. Small bickies really when one considers the total cost of his two+ weeks in three hospitals.

The dispatcher’s initial assessment of Martin’s situation was wrong and he is still in hospital in a semi-serious condition.


As Martin is a Public Patient, we will probably not see the total cost of his hospitalisation, scans etc and treatment.