A costly business

Everyone knows that bringing a child into the world is an expensive business – first you have to furnish the nursery, then you have to keep it in clothes, food, shelter and entertainment for the next twenty years or so, not to mention childcare costs, holidays, education and medical bills. These are all of the “obvious” expenses that most people consider when planning to start a family, but if you live somewhere like Italy, you also have to budget for what is likely to be a costly (not to mention stressful and bureaucratic) pregnancy.
Where I come from (the UK), healthcare is free. And that means totally free of charge. You can go to your doctor, visit a specialist, get your blood tests done, see a nurse, spend time in hospital, have an operation and recuperate all without spending a penny from your own pocket. Yes I know that the NHS has terrible difficulties, that hospitals are full of evil “super bugs”, waiting to finish you off just when you were starting to feel better, that there are serious staff shortages, and that in parts of central London, entire wards are made up of patients, doctors and nurses who speak little or no English. I am not denying or ignoring these issues, I am simply stating that, whilst there are very many negatives, the one BIG positive is that the National Health Service in the UK is FREE. Italy, in theory, has an assisted healthcare system, which pretends to run along the lines of the UK service, but in reality falls at the first hurdle, simply as a result of being physically located in what must be the most bureaucratic, disorganized, politically corrupt nation on the planet. So, when you go to the hospital to get your “free” blood tests, you are told that actually you have to pay a minimum of 35 euros for each “referral” provided by your doctor to get the test done – as a sort of charge to keep the state workers in their comfy seats from 10 til 2 everyday. Then you discover that, since your doctor was incompetent and wrote out 3 referrals when she could have stuck with 1, the cost of the blood tests will be 100 euros, not 35. And it is following this pattern that my 10 week pregnancy so far has cost me a grand total of 342 euros, with an estimated 300 to spend over the next two months.
A trip to the pharmacy for multi-vitamins and a pair of elasticated sea bands for my nausea the other day cost 30 euros (15 per product) and I couldn’t even claim the tax back on them as they are not considered to be “medication”. I called the local hospital to book an appointment for my morphological ultrasound in October (this was in mid-July) and was told that they couldn’t fit me in before January, and that I should try the ultrasound clinic down the road as they “always have some space”. Yep, because they charge 200 euros for the privilege! What can I say? It doesn’t start with cribs and nappies and cutesy outfits…. Here at least it starts from the moment you miss your period and find yourself parting with 18 euros for a digital pregnancy testing kit as the pharmacy has run out of the traditional kind and is the only place open for 20 kilometers, it being Sunday and all that…. Ah the joys of pregnancy in Italy!