[MDSPerth]

Honey, all Pauls expenses were paid we never saw one bill. Even though we had private health insurance it was recommended by his consultant that he go in as a public patient. The reason behind this we were told is that if he had gone in as private patient all his pathology bills would have to have been processed by us. Something to do with Medicare and the fact that the card holder had to sign off on all the bills.

His treatment as a public patient was no different to that of a private patient as all rooms in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit at Royal Perth Hospital are single rooms anyway. When he checked out at day 16 he was given enough medication to take him through to day 100 at no cost.

We were told the difference between public and private would have been that he would have received a newspaper each day (which he was not up to reading the majority of the time), I would have received free parking each day and a $10 voucher for the cafe. I received a carers meal at the hospital whenever I was there at meal times anyway.

They did a sibling test for Paul with his sister and brother in England with neither a match. They then went to the world wide register and I was told after Paul passed away that his donor cells had come from a young man in Spain. It did seem to take some time to find a donor and we were beginning to loose hope, but from receiving advice that a donor had been found to Paul being admitted to hospital, it was 19 days.

My understanding is the costs for a transplant are beyond belief especially when things start to go wrong as was the case with Paul. We were also told that a courier goes to the country the cells come from to collect them and that they are carried on their knee back to Australia. Once collected the cells never leave the hands of the courier until they are delivered to the hospital.

Are you still in Perth.

Regards Sandi