baby scan rip off digusting if you ask me

Caroline73_2

Sam is still a little flasher now! He won't wear clothes unless he has too!

Fly_Baby

themaccas wrote: »

As for nurses 'doing nothing for hours in their working day'...try a day in their shoes....

Oh, I'd love to spend a day in my GP's shoes who prescribes paracetamol for every disease and whose favorite words are "it will go on its own" (only it rarely does) ... or the nurses in the orphopaedics department where my daughter has been treated - dozens of them in one corridor... or two nurses in the A&E dept at our hospital just sitting and talking whilst waiting for the doctor to come.

I had quite a lot to say about NHS - and the least they can do is do their job and not be difficult when it doesn't cost them anything.

Again, I am not talking about all nurses and all medical professionals. As many on this thread have said, many hospitals are happy to let you know the sex of your baby for free.

DKLS

Fly_Baby wrote: »

I too think it is a rip off - i.e. the hospital's way of making more money. Sex of the baby might not be crucial after 1-2 kids but when you are expecting your first - it matters sometimes! I remember expecting my firstbron - I very much wanted to know if that was going to be a boy or a girl and my husband was so proud when we learnt that it was "95% a boy".

Also, knowing sex helps when preparing things for the baby. Friends and family will be offering you equipment and clothes and you have to know which colour you will need (who will want to end up with heaps of babygros with trains and cars when you have a girl?)

And I HAD paid for that little extra of knowing the gender of my own child - in fact paid for much more than that in my taxes, and so did my husband.

Again, having six scans in total in my life (with two kids) - it never took the sonographer took more than 5 seconds to move that thing over my belly and tell me the gender of the child. If it does take loads of time and holds up the whole clinic then the sonographer could say just that, to that particular patient - after all, sometimes it really is not possible to see the gender.

I was really outraged by the OP's brother's hospital. I can respect the Muslim reason - but anything else, i.e., alleged waste of time and unnecessity of this service?.. That's just not true - hospitals waste a lot of time somewhere else.

Your right, its a total rip off, why shouldn't the NHS attend to every patients whim and fancy.

After all, those Ultrasound machines are so cheap, along with the ultra cheap maintenance contracts and consumables. Not forgetting the cost of training for Ultrasonographers and consultants, and the ongoing annual QA with the FMF.

If you don't like the NHS, go private you may like the costs even less.

[Deleted User]

We had an ultrasound at 6 weeks (it was supposed to be a scan for PCOS but turned out to be a baby ) at a private hospital and they were absolutely amazing. Far, far, far better than the NHS ultrasound at 12 weeks - who barely talked to us, didn't explain anything..

It's a good job my wife works at the hospital, or i'd be looking at all private scans.

I wonder if i can get the image files from the ultrasound under the data protection act.. i've got the software at work to view them.

We've got another scan coming up in a few weeks, where we should be able to establish the gender. I'm not going to best pleased if we get the same useless technician and have to pay for the privilege of them doing their job

tiamai_d

oystercatcher wrote: »

Why is it a rip off? The scan is to try and detect any abnormalities not to determine the sex of the child. Why should the NHS waste time (which is money) just to please the whim of the parents. Sometimes if the baby is in an awkward position it can take ages to find the sex of the child this could then hold up the whole clinic.

If they went for a private scan to determine sex it would cost about £100 .

It is voluntary to pay the £50 so not a rip off at all.

Oystercatcher

Actually they do take note of the sex. I have copies of my medical records from both my pregnancies, and both times they have noted at the 20/22 week sscan that they were boys. The first time they told us they do not tell parents the sex of the baby, and we didn't want to know. The second time they offered to tell me and I accepted. I was very, very sick and was in the mind that it wasn't a baby, it was a paracite. Being told what sex the baby was helped me bond with my little boy.

They then told me that it is upto the discretion of the sonographer whether to inform parents or not, but they do note it in the medical notes if they can 'see' what sex the baby is, it make's a difference in the case of premature deliveries for example, baby boys usually need a bit more care than girls delivered at the same gestation.

Fly_Baby

DKLS wrote: »

Your right, its a total rip off, why shouldn't the NHS attend to every patients whim and fancy.

After all, those Ultrasound machines are so cheap, along with the ultra cheap maintenance contracts and consumables. Not forgetting the cost of training for Ultrasonographers and consultants, and the ongoing annual QA with the FMF.

If you don't like the NHS, go private you may like the costs even less.

It is not a whim and fancy! It is a very natural desire of parents!

Before this thread I didn't even know that there are "gender scans" - and I had my second child quite recently, in 2007. Does it depend on the hospital? In most cases the sonographer sees the sex anyway, while performing the routine scan and using this expensive machine etc - then why not just tell it?

I don't care about the cost of training of whoever - I was trained too and I am doing my bit to serve the state and people, and what, everybody should care how much it cost me?

Should hospitals start charging for using baby changing facilities? For water cooler for patients? For toys and pay areas they have in hospitals? One of my friends was even trained as a "hospital babycarer" or something - her only duty was to spend time with children at the hospital, to help them feel happy and safe while waiting for treatment, to entertain them so that they don't get scared of doctors. I always viewed is as a parent's responsibility yet she was trained at the expense of the hospital and she is not paid wages.

This service is really not essential, IMO, albeit of course it is very nice to have such a helper.

So I don't understand why hospitals would have gone such a long way to make the patient's stay as comfortable as possible - way and beyond! - but think it is justifiable to charge £50 + for something as easy as say three words: "It's a boy" or "It's a girl".

DKLS

Fly_Baby wrote: »

It is not a whim and fancy! It is a very natural desire of parents!

It may be a natural desire, but hardly a medical necessity.

If my partner was too have a scan, I would want the sonographer to be concentrating on getting the Nuchol fold measurement right and searching for fetal anomolies not searching for genitalia.

IMO if you want to know the sex pay for a private sexing scan £70, or even better go for a 3d scan for about £190 then you can see the sex in glorious technicolour (well a funny sepia shade)

gemz20

the songrapher that done my scan was happy to tell us i just waited till the end of the scan when she had done all the checks and said did you see what sex it was she said yes would you like to no which i did so i suppose if they can see while doing the routine scan it doesnt cost anything time or money to let you no if you ask

[Deleted User]

DKLS wrote: »

It may be a natural desire, but hardly a medical necessity.

Unless you knew your family had gender specific inherited conditions - then it's pretty important

Fly_Baby

DKLS wrote: »

It may be a natural desire, but hardly a medical necessity.

If my partner was too have a scan, I would want the sonographer to be concentrating on getting the Nuchol fold measurement right and searching for fetal anomolies not searching for genitalia.

IMO if you want to know the sex pay for a private sexing scan £70, or even better go for a 3d scan for about £190 then you can see the sex in glorious technicolour (well a funny sepia shade)

The sonographer is doing both in most cases. When examining internal organs it is hard not to notice anyway.

As I said I didn't pay to know sex of my son - it was just told to me like to everybody else. But I had to treat my daughter's medical problems privately to the extent of taking her to another country to be seen by a foreign doctor. And not because I wanted fancy treatment - but because the NHS doctor was ****dy useless. As was the second opinion doctor, with lots of credentials.

So are you saying that if I am not happy with NHS I should go privately? Do you suggest that I don't pay for NHS then? For the orthopaedic treatment that my newborn daughter never received? Oh, and for those essential scans that I was never given on NHS? I don't see why I still should be paying for these in taxes and NI if I am paying for them privately elsewehere.

Of course, this is never going to happen. So please spare me all these details of how my desire to know the baby's sex would prevent the sonographer from doing her job properly. Everybody in every job is doing a bit extra all the time - including me and, I am sure, including you.