Canberra Baby Boom

Just saw this story, as I was off at Calvary having a baby last week.

There is a definite trend to having babies under private care in Canberra. Possibly because we have the oldest demographic for first-time mothers, with higher education and incomes. Which means more likelihood of private health cover and wanting a private hospital room. Interesting to note that you can download reports from ACT Health that show JJMH has the oldest demographic for mothers. They also have the highest rates of caesarean delivery and the worst stats on episiotomy. And they don’t do public care, only private.

By the way, there does seem to be a baby boom going on. Calvary last week had a completely full maternity ward, and has had on/off for over a month. The hospital as a whole was at 98% capacity (overheard the caterer telling the midwives why the food service has been a bit haphazard lately).

As for the $4K baby bonus, I don’t think it’s the biggest factor in folks reproducing. More likely it’s just that the babies born in the 1970’s (offspring of the massive post-war baby boom) are now at breeding age. We’ve all bought houses in the recent property boom, so the next logical step is to have kids. The baby bonus just helps pay for the private obstetrician or the homebirth midwife.

See this is what annoys me about the $4k First it isn’t enough to make you want to have kids, unless you don’t earn very much $4k to someone on $20k is a hell of a lot more valuable than someone on $200k.

The payment was bought in as a encouragement to have kids – but it encourages the people that cannot afford to keep them. If it doesn’t encourage people then why have it.

My understanding is that the fertility rate is high amongst those in a low socio economic group and low in higher.

Are we just creating a whole generation of poverty traps?

Ditch the $4k make child care tax deductable – if both parents are on welfare no benefit, if they work then benefit, if they are the lowest fertility group then give the highest benefit.

“What its really showing is that more people are choosing private maternity wards than public”.. now I’ve heard it all. This comment is not correct. Please explain how you can reach this conclusion based on percentages, and not on total numbers. JJMH has a much much smaller capacity than TCH, so although their numbers may be up, they are nowhere near the numbers of TCH Maternity Unit and never will be. The figures quoted are only percentages, not total numbers, so saying that CJJMH have more births than TCH is payently incorrect. The actual figures do not support this view. CJJMH are not in the same league as TCH in any sense, they do not have 24 hr medical cover, no neonatal care unit and are not a tertiary teaching hospital. Please use correct figures and statistical analysis before making claims, to avoid foot in mouth syndrome.

My sister in law spent her family bonus thingy on a new leather jacket, and some toys for the kids. Your tax dollars at work.

how else can they afford the latest and greatest plasma/lcd ?

“To answer your question Mr Evil, because having a baby and raising it costs a hell of a lot more than $4000.”

Tell all the teenage single mums that. Mind you, they’re probably getting welfare anyway, so it still won’t cost them a cent. 🙂

In the same article, it does say Canbrra Hospital has seen a 10% increase in births over the last two years.

To answer your question Mr Evil, because having a baby and raising it costs a hell of a lot more than $4000.

At $4000/head from the Commonwealth, why wouldn’t you have a sprog?