Cost of baby delivery without Kela card

Nandita · Post by **Nandita** » Thu May 22, 2014 2:02 pm

I am living with my husband in Helsinki alone. We both have Indian citizenship. I am 5 months pregnant . I cannot avail Kela card benefits. I have regular monthly visits to midwife and have continuous prenatal care. I am wondering about cost of delivering a baby as my midwife told the cost may go up to 8000 Euro which is too high for us to afford. I cannot travel back to India because I have history of two miscarriages. This is my third pregnancy and I do not want to take risk this time.

Please let me know about cost of delivering a baby and if any of you have experience in the aspect of confinement & postnatal care in Finland. Thanks!!

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priki · Post by **priki** » Thu May 22, 2014 7:07 pm

Don't you have an insurance to cover the costs?

I don't have any experience, and googling only gave old information. E.g. this article is five years old, back then the cost for foreigners in Tampere was between 1542€ and 2477€ depending on the difficulty and the amount of days in hospital. http://www.aviisi.fi/artikkeli/?num=12/2009&id=0c4b01c

I also found price list of HUS for year 2014, there the price of giving birth varies between 2095€ and 6760€ depending on if there are problems or not. Cesarean section can cost even 7804€.
http://www.hus.fi/hus-tietoa/talous/Hin ... SA%201.pdf
If I understood it correctly, these prices are paid to the hospital by the (Finnish) home town of the mother-to-be, and in addition to that the mother-to-be will pay something like 30-40 € per day. I do not know if these prices are valid for foreigners, probably a combination of those fees.

misu · Post by **misu** » Thu May 22, 2014 11:29 pm

There's a blog entry I came across recently where the blogger writes about the out-of-pocket costs as she's about to give birth and is not covered by Kela: http://embracelifebeinspired.com/2014/0 ... -35-weeks/

According to that, natural birth is 2250€, C-section is 5840€, and hospital stay per night is 39€. This might vary a bit by city or hospital, I'm not sure, but I'd guess it's a good rough estimate.

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Fri May 23, 2014 12:20 pm

The price is based on the costs. I don't think anybody can give you an upper limit, while around 3000 should be sufficient for clear majority of cases (and you may in the end need less than that if you're not unlucky)

Does your husband have a KELA coverage (I believe, though I am not sure, that it would give coverage to the child)? If not, and there are problems, I'm pretty sure extended intensive care will get expensive quite fast.

Nandita · Post by **Nandita** » Fri May 23, 2014 1:15 pm

@ prikki, misu and Rip ….many thanks for sharing info …!!

@cory & Anna.g
Hohoho …well there is point in ur answers…where the hell I could go ….

interleukin · Post by **interleukin** » Fri May 23, 2014 2:29 pm

If you have a valid residence permit, you should also have a valid insurance, right? Can your insurance company not help you pay?

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Fri May 23, 2014 6:24 pm

interleukin wrote:If you have a valid residence permit, you should also have a valid insurance, right? Can your insurance company not help you pay?

I guess there wouldn't be this thread if they would. Nothing particularly uncommon to have an an private insurance that covers almost anything else except pregnancy costs. It is not an illness or injury but a normal (at some point at least) condition for a woman in her 20's or 30's.

GermanInHelsinki · Post by **GermanInHelsinki** » Fri May 23, 2014 7:08 pm

When he works for at least 4 months in Finland, his "insurance company" is of course KELA.

When he works for less than 2 years in Finland, his family members are of course not covered by KELA.

When his family members are not covered by KELA, his child can of course not get health care coverage through him.

faronel · Post by **faronel** » Mon May 26, 2014 10:16 am

GermanInHelsinki wrote:When he works for at least 4 months in Finland, his "insurance company" is of course KELA.

When he works for less than 2 years in Finland, his family members are of course not covered by KELA.

When his family members are not covered by KELA, his child can of course not get health care coverage through him.

Maybe I am wrong but I was told that the your working contract must be at least 2 years long starting from the day you apply in order to get the KELA coverage. A person I know was actually denied KELA coverage when he applied for it based on a fresh contract that was for a "summer period" and was supposed to last for 5 months.

Another thing, as a personal curiosity, is it for fact that a person must have worked 2 years before his closed one can be covered with KELA? Or the initial KELA acceptance (based on a contract that will last at least 2 years in future) is enough for the future child to be covered?

GermanInHelsinki · Post by **GermanInHelsinki** » Mon May 26, 2014 12:16 pm

The family is of course covered immediately when the contract signed is for at least 2 years.

Your friend had a regular full-time employment with a regular salary?
Low-pay internships do of course not entitle to KELA coverage.

ishachau · Post by **ishachau** » Tue Aug 05, 2014 9:51 am

i am in same situation like yours(came from India)six months pregnent nd no Kela card.i have private insurance but there is limit to it.
Every visit to doctor nd midwife costs a lot here.we can catch up sometime(ishachauhan7@yahoo.com)

bm50 · Post by **bm50** » Wed Aug 06, 2014 1:25 pm

One other option is Ryan air to the UK everything is free there for foreigners!

onkko · Post by **onkko** » Wed Aug 06, 2014 3:24 pm

As said, boat to Estonia. I dont know quality or anything but i can say they should be cheaper.
And for ..... why you didnt think this before...

Nandita · Post by **Nandita** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 12:08 pm

I am sorry, I didn't complete my statement when I posted the cost ( my mistake). I had cesarean for which it cost around 15K only and was easily covered in insurance, The rest cost was for baby's treatment in ICU which I had told below.

It will b surprised ..that the bill invoice I got, it exhausted the insurance amount. It was above 350000 euro.

onkko · Post by **onkko** » Sat Mar 14, 2015 6:29 pm

Nandita wrote:It will b surprised ..that the bill invoice I got, it exhausted the insurance amount. It was above 350000 euro.

So premature birth and everything went south badly? Scans of bills please.

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