New parents crippled by hospital debt in Australia

Yaryna Kvitka and her partner Volodymyr Muliar set off from Kiev in October 2014 on a cycling tour around the world. They're a folk duo known as Folknery and the aim was to travel across 14 countries and finish in Australia.

"We are not rich people and most Ukrainians aren’t rich people but some people think only rich people can travelling," says Yaryna.

"We show people it's not so important you're rich.

"In Bali, I felt bad so like last days before go to Australia I was feeling very bad and uh, we did test and we did test for pregnancy and it say yeah you’re pregnant.

"It wasn’t planned but we are not young ... if baby want to be in this world, why not?"

So with a baby on the way, Yaryna and Volo pushed on to Sydney, but first they had to cycle across Australia.

Professor Jonathan Morris says exercise is fine while pregnant, just know your limits.

"So women often ask how much exercise, how much physical activity can do in pregnancy, it’s quite clear that there is a right amount," he says.
Cycling
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"The general advice associated with women that I think is that they shouldn’t take up activities that they’re not used to doing when they’re not pregnant.

"But certainly exercise such as cycling, swimming, there’s no reason that they should be avoided in pregnancy."

The pair finished cycling on February 20 in Sydney and planned to fly to Argentina in early May to have the baby, but baby Marko had other ideas.

"In the morning, something changed. I feel some spasm and after was little ... bit blood so I called to my doctor in Brisbane and he said: go to hospital right now," she says.

"So they sent me to Royal Hospital for women and I had baby Marco on Friday.

"He was 28 weeks plus five days so very, very small and 1.1 kg, he was so small but very beautiful.

"It’s always hard though when pregnancy complications occur because a woman always reviews what she’s been doing and tries and always wonders if they’ve contributed to a loss and it’s very rarely that’s the case," says Professor Morris.

"So premature births occur in about 7 in 100 pregnancies ... 7% of all pregnancies are babies that are born before 37 weeks gestation.
 
"So babies when they’re born very early do need very high intensive care, and that includes round the clock nursing support, round the clock ventilation support so there are costs equivalent to any intensive care setting."

Baby Marko has been in intensive care for around 45 days and the couple's costs are mounting.

"Now, our debt is around 200,000 dollars for hospital," says Yaryna.

"If you’re travelling, especially by bicycle, you should have an insurance because… you don’t know what will happen with you so we had insurance from Ukrainian company but it doesn’t cover pregnancy.

If you find out you are pregnant while travelling, chances are your insurance won't cover you as it is a pre-existing condition.
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The NSW Health Department says these circumstances are not uncommon among international visitors: "Anyone in need of medical care will receive it, irrespective of nationality, insurance status or ability to pay."

"If you have some problem, you should solve it not just run from it," adds Yaryna. 

"And we don’t want to sleep and think that we did something bad like we didn’t pay them … we have time to solve this problem and we do what we can.

"So now we try to collect money and to solve this debt.

"If you are optimistic, everything will be good. If you will be sad or pessimist, everything will be the same."

But optimism doesn't pay bills and with all their savings going towards baby Marko, the only real way to pay the money back is to find a job.

"It’s second problem, we have visitor visa and now we extended for six more months and we can’t work so we wrote .. letter to immigration department if possible to help us and to give us some working hours…. because Australia is quite expensive we need to live somewhere, we need to eat something," says Yaryna.

With bills mounting, it was a welcome relief when Marko is finally allowed to go home.

With no funds and limited possessions, Yaryna gives away the only thing she has in abundance: breast milk.

With a huge debt, no job and an uncertain future, Marko, Yaryna and Volo are staying positive about the future.

Since they have no savings and no ability to work, the couple are now relying on the generosity of the Australian public to get them through.

"So (the) world is more interesting and more beautiful if you are optimistic and if you believe that all problems can solve," says Yaryna

"We are alive, our baby’s alive and he’s strong, he’s healthy so we’ll find the way to find exit from this problem – we believe it."
Couple
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