Pregnancy & Birth in Malta

nmb1812 wrote:

Hey guys
My partner has just been offered a job in Malta and when we relocate I will have roughly 8-10 weeks left in pregnancy I was just wondering how health care works in malta obviously I will be too heavily pregnant to work until the baby is born. I'm currently living in the UK any help would be greatly appreciated
Thank you x

Pregnancy has been covered on here before, if you use search at the top of the page, good luck.

I have tried to locate the info I need but failed massively as many of the posters I found  were in early stages of pregnancy rather than being ready to pop 🙈 x

Safe to assume you are from the UK and an EU citizen? If so, as the husband of a wife that's ready to pop herself:

You can go 2 routes -
1) Private, if you have insurance or are prepared to pony up the dough, usually with the St James hospitals (note the maternity unit in Sliema closed down a couple months ago, so you can go for your scans there, but not for the birth). St James Zabbar tends to be the main private hospital.

St James are quite good, no waiting around for check ups. Whole process for scans/check ups is a delight. If you decide to do the birth with them and there's complications, some chance they will send you to Mater dei as I've been told they are better equipped.

Scans are around 20-30 euro if you are paying. Blood test is a couple hundred. I think giving birth is 3-6k euro. Obviously you don't pay if you have private health insurance.

2) Public with Mater dei hospital - It's free for EU citizens. Most births are here, as ours plans to be. You will have to register there and go for a couple scans though before giving birth as they won't really accept information from St James or other hospitals.

Quite a big and good public hospital (I've heard it's the biggest medical building in europe). Issue is when you go for the scans and checks, the wait is LOOOONNNNNGGGGGGG. If your booking is at 9:30am, you'll be lucky to get out before 1pm.  Checking in on the day of birth though is apparently a quick and easy process, so it's a bit of short term pain for long term preparedness for the big day.

Hope that helps.

Thank you for all the useful info, I live in Birmingham so I'm pretty used to long crappy waiting times etc good luck to you and your wife on your new arrival

nmb1812 wrote:

Thank you for all the useful info, I live in Birmingham so I'm pretty used to long crappy waiting times etc good luck to you and your wife on your new arrival

Likewise.

Until you or your husband start paying national insurance here you will probably be charged for any treatment, over here you have to pay to see a GP last time I went it was €10 but it may be more now, the only way not to pay is to go to one of the clinics.

We had our boy in St James Sliema a year ago, everyone was great, had not realised they  closed the maternity function down.

We've been to St James Zabbar and it was a shambles - complete mess and no-one had any clue what was going, out of stock of medicines sending me to run around pharmacies to buy the stock for them etc

My other half will have already been out in Malta working for around 2 months before me and the children join him so hopefully it won't be an issue. I've read so many different things my poor head is frazzled! I read that treatment was free at public hospitals for EU citizens 😕

Re: Children's Allowance and various related benefits - please see:

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.p … 10#4075661

hello

i'm wondering, my wife is 8 months pregnant i have been working here in malta for 1 year 4 months we are legally married but not registered in malta to give birth its free in mater dei or there is any fees?

hello
i'm wondering, my wife is 8 months pregnant i have been working here in malta for 1 year 4 months we are legally married but not registered in malta to give birth its free in mater dei or there is any fees?
-@dawityadesa7

Not registered does that mean you have not got residency cards?

hello
i'm wondering, my wife is 8 months pregnant i have been working here in malta for 1 year 4 months we are legally married but not registered in malta to give birth its free in mater dei or there is any fees?
-@dawityadesa7

Has your wife not had any checkups?

@SimCityAT yes she had from my country she just arrived.

@GozoMo i have for me but my wife she just arrived earlier by family reunion

@dawityadesa7 If she has just arrived and there is no record of marriage here then she presumably does not have health cover and that may be a problem.

Check with Health Authority asap.