New mum landed with Dh373,000 hospital bill after her baby is born 15 weeks early
Health insurer provided cover up to Dh500,000, but then said premature delivery was a pre-existing condition
Roxanne Adviento and her husband Carlson had been trying to have a baby for more than five years, and suffered two miscarriages along the way.
She lost her first baby at 23 weeks in 2012 and the second after 20 weeks in 2014.
In September last year, Ms Adviento found she was pregnant again, and was desperate not to repeat the traumatic experiences.
“This time, I was hopeful and I was very careful. I had surgery at three months to tighten my cervix to prevent a miscarriage.”
Despite undergoing the surgery, Ms Adviento went into labour at 25 weeks.
“I did everything to not have an early delivery. My target was seven months, but it didn’t happen.”
Doctors told Ms Adviento her baby boy, who weighed just one kilogram, had a 50 per cent chance of survival. “The doctors prepared us for the worst.”
Seeing the baby for the first time, Ms Adviento says she had mixed emotions.
“We were scared, happy, worried. He was in the Nicu (neonatal intensive care unit) and had so many tubes attached to him. His head was like a small orange. He was so, so tiny,” she said.
She named him Aaron and he remained in an incubator for 82 days, but her troubles worsened 15 days after he was admitted.
Ms Adviento works as a sales assistant for an insurance company and had a good insurance plan that would cover her hospital bills up to Dh500,000.
“I had also applied for insurance for Aaron and everything was going smoothly,” she said. But after 15 days, the hospital told Ms Adviento that the insurance company was rejecting their bills.
When she approached the company, it claimed that a premature delivery was a pre-existing condition, so it would cover her bills up to only Dh100,000. Each day at the Nicu costs Dh10,000 and doctors told her it was too risky to move Aaron.
Ms Adviento earns Dh6,000 a month and had no means to pay the hospital bills, which had climbed to Dh700,000.
“The insurance company paid Dh100,000 and family, friends and good Samaritans have donated some money, but I still couldn’t pay the entire amount,” she said.
Today Aaron is home and healthy, but Ms Adviento still owes the hospital Dh373,000. “The hospital has been very kind. They continued to treat my son even though they knew we couldn’t pay.”
But as a security deposit the hospital has asked for a cheque and has withheld her passport.
“I completely understand of course, they need a security deposit and they already have been very accommodating by continuing to care for my baby,” she said.
“I am indebted to them and the intention of paying them back is there, but I have no resources. It’s a liability and I am trying my best. Any money that’s left each month I put aside, but I still don’t have enough to pay the amount.”
Hisham Al Zahrani, manager of Zakat and Social Services at Dar Al Ber said the insurance company should have been forthright with Ms Adviento and her family.
“If she had been informed, she could have found other alternatives. We are asking our readers to help Roxanne pay the remaining amount of Dh373,000 to help ease their burden,” Mr Al Zahrani said.