You are not alone

There is a big fluctuation when it comes to international people in Cork.

Due to jobs and situations in the home country a lot of families are looking for Ireland and Cork, with its big variety of bilingual jobs, for a different life without the struggle of living on a very low-income.

When you are new to Cork, don’t think you are on your own. There a many families from many different countries that have probably been in a very similar situation, when they first came to Ireland.

From meetings on the weekends or, if kids are involved, days at the park; there is always something to do and there are always people to do it with!!

And people that have lived here for a while, make sure you are open to others to help them in their beginnings. We all know how much stress it takes away to have someone guide you and inform you about important aspects of life in Cork.

This blog here is one of many options to find help! It is on us to make the most of the international environment we have in Cork!

Irish Health System For Dummies II – Private Health Insurance

*If you are not very familiar with the Irish Health system, in order to understand better that post I recommend to read first that one Irish Health System For Dummies I – General Information.

Imagine yourself throwing 2000€ to the toilet at the beginning of every year, well, in general this image is not that far from what a family is doing when they sign up from private health insurance policy in Ireland.

When we arrived to Ireland, we didn’t know 100% how the things were working in many areas, even, a previous intense search for information about the place didn’t avoid us this uncertainty that most of people have when moving to a new country.

One of the first things we got sorted when we landed in Cork was a private health insurance for the family, if you do a search in the web many sites recommended you to get one in Ireland, even if you ask to the Irish people many of them will recommend it too, most of the times they cannot spot clearly the value of having it, but in any case we went for it and we paid around 1800€ for a year for 2 adults and 1 child.

That year my daugther got sick a couple of times, no major issues, winter virus, colds etc, normal stuff. So we went to the doctor two times, and naive me, I though after being paid 1800 euros, it would be free!!, to my surprise it wasn’t. It was the beginning of the end. I phoned the insurance company a bit upset and they explained me that my policy didn’t cover primary care and that we could go for a different policy next year where I could get the 50% back of the primary care expenses. It would cost a bit more, around 2000€ , but then they would return me a 50% of the day to day additional medical costs, what a bargain!!.

So at the end of the year with our private health insurance I spent (or partially wasted) in medical expenses, 1900 €, and we just went to the general practitioner two times!! Simplifying a lot 950€ per visit lol. Summarizing:

First Year: With Private Medical Insurance the Total Medical Expenses were 1900€, detailed as below:

1. The annual private insurance fee for the family (That’s the wasted part) – 1800€

2. The day to day medical expenses. – 100€

Then, having first-hand information for our first year experience together with the fact that in Ireland everybody* is covered by the public health system HSE, actually you’ll see for your monthly payslip that a reasonable amount of it goes in taxes to the HSE (www.hse.ie), we decided to quit from the private health insurance.

Second year started, by then we were four in the family, my youngest daughter arrived in November. This year was busier than the first one in terms of health care, we had to go:

– 4 times to the General Practitioner. 200€

– 1 To the emergency department.  100€

– 1 to the South Doc (60€) who sent our baby to the UCC hospital due to a bronchiolitis, and there we spent 1 night (75€)

Second year, Total Medical Costs without private insurance = 435€.

Big difference! isn’t? If I had kept my health insurance, from this 435€ I would have to have paid most of the costs except the 75€ of the hospital night, that was cover on the policy. So this would have been instead  360€ + 2000 € for the annual fee (4 members now). Total 2360€.

Even if you have a very bad year, remember you pay up two 10 nights in the hospital per year. 10 nights in the hospital = 750€ still very far from the 1900 € we paid first year. Normally if you have a major problem you’ll be sent to a public hospital.

Other thing some people are doing, is to save into an account the annual amount it would cost the private coverage for her/his entire family. So in case of a contingency or for example you don’t want to wait two years to get your knee operated, you can use that money for that purpose.

There are positives in the private health insurance too, the main one is that you can cut the waits, so if you are likely to go often to the doctor private insurance will avoid all the hassle of long waitings, a long waiting is the last thing you want when you are sick, and Public Hospitals in Ireland are not the best in that. Also for minor injuries that require surgery you may wait around two years using the public system, with the private insurance it wouldn’t be the case.

Some companies pay the private health insurance for their employees, if it is your case, there is no doubt, go for it!

This is just my opinion based on my experience. I hope you find the topic interesting, if you do a search in the web, in the Irish forums there are a lot of debate around it with all kind of opinions.

*A person living in Ireland for at least one year is considered by the HSE to be ‘ordinarily resident’ and is entitled to either full eligibility (Category 1) or limited eligibility (Category 2) for health services.

People who have not been resident in Ireland for at least one year must satisfy the HSE that it is their intention to remain for a minimum of one year in order to be eligible for health services. Dependants of such individuals must also contact the HSE to confirm their eligibility. http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/Find_a_Service/eligibility.html

Home Birth experience

I would like to share with all of you how I experienced my pregnancy and child´s birth in Cork, Ireland. As a foreigner, I first thought about the possibility of giving birth in my own country as I did not know how things worked in Ireland regarding the maternity experience.

Sooner rather than later, I realized that Ireland is well prepared for maternity care. Every pregnant woman is entitled to have free medical attention. Apart from that, you can also decide the way that you would like to give birth.

I conducted research on the different possibilities of giving birth in Ireland for a few months. When I was in my 32 week, I talked to my husband and we both agreed to organize a home birth. We believe that this was a good decision for us and for our baby.

The service that “National Home Birth Service” provides is absolutely amazing. The midwife, who is fully qualified and experienced, brings everything required to your home well before the due date. In our case, our midwife has over 35 years of experience.

After passing a check-up at the hospital, our midwife met us regularly at her house. We had an hour appointment with her on a weekly basis. Therefore, we could avoid the long queues usually formed at hospitals. In addition, we could also contact her anytime if something bothered us. Because of that, we built a trustful relationship with her, which made me feel very relax and confident during my labour.

When I started to have strong contractions, my husband rang the midwife. Once she got to our flat and checked I was in active labour, she immediately phoned both the hospital and the ambulance to let them know. Everything was ready in case I had had to be taken to hospital. Just thirty minutes before the arrival, a second experienced homebirth midwife arrived at my flat in order to be present and assist myself if needed. According to the HSE policy, there must be two midwives present at birth.

I was really well prepared for that moment. I did yoga, watched lots of videos and exercised in water i.e. swimming, water walking or jogging and aqua aerobics during pregnancy what I found very helpful and it really prepared me. I also had a lot of confidence and trust in the midwife, and that’s why I think everything went well.

My little boy was born after 4 hours of labour in a safe and relaxed environment. We had a natural birth. There was no need for any type of pain relief or for having stitches. I won’t ever forget my baby lying on my chest looking for my breast. We were so happy that we even forgot to ask our midwife for the baby´s sex.

The homebirth service finished two weeks after the baby was born. The midwife visited my baby and me to see if we had any concerns. After that period of time, the breastfeeding was settled and I started to feel better.

I am very glad to have had the opportunity to give birth to my first baby in that way, in Ireland. That is something that, unfortunately, it could not be possible in my country without paying for it.

Thank you to Community Midwives Association, SECMs, which provides this service, and the HSE, who pays for it, for giving me the chance to have a homebirth.

If you felt like having a homebirth, I would recommend visiting the website www.communitymidwives.ie  so as to find the closest Self Employed Community Midwife (SECM) to where you live.  Further information available on http://www.homebirth.ie

10 Reasons because Cork is family friendly.

1. Despite it is a small city, Cork has a lot of festivals and activities along the year that families and kids can enjoy themselves: Cork Guinnes Jazz Festival,  St Patrick Day, Ocean to City, Lifetime RiverLee, Food Festival,Live at the Marquee, Halloween, Christmas Market, …

2. You won’t waste time travelling to the office,instead you can walk or cycle 30 min as much: If you work in the suburbs, some companies are out of the city, you may drive or take a bus ride which takes you no more than 30 min.

3.  Cork combines good jobs with a good standard of living. Cork can offer you a lot of job opportunities in the Pharma and IT industry as well as in other sectors as far as your English level is good enough, and the cost of living is lower than in Dublin. Make sure you have the job sorted before you move with your family.

4. Plenty of options for going around for a day/weekend with the family:

– Natural Parks and nice towns: Killarney, Gougane Barra, Fota, Ring of Kerry, Kinsale, Youghal, Dingle, etc

– Beaches: Many options in West and East Cork, my favourite one, Inchidoney in Clonakilty.

– Open farms as well as indoor playgrounds, very convinients in the unlikely event of rain.

5.  Small Airport with a bunch connections available to other countries in Europe.

6. A great university as University Cork College http://www.ucc.ie/en/ as well as the Cork Institute of Technology, http://www.cit.ie: Both are good options, if you want to go for further education here.

7.  Cork is known as the best foodie scene in Ireland, having The English Market as the most visited place in Cork. In there you can find a high quality and good variety of products for small scale producers http://www.englishmarket.ie/. Also, if you enjoy dinning out, Cork offers a lot of options, being most of the restaurants child friendly.

8. Cork gives families a lot of options to have an active and healthy life. If you enjoy running there are very nice areas for a jog around the city as well as races all the year for different distances see http://corkbhaa.com/.

You also can do kayaking, surf, trekking,.. There are several gyms and swimming pools available, as well as a ‘rock wall’ in the Mardyke  which offers activities for kids over 4 years (http://www.mardykearena.com/climbingwall.cfm)

9. The Corkonians, I cannot forget them!!They are friendly and positive people, they’ll welcome you from the first moment you step into the city. They have a peculiar accent so don’t be worry if at the beginning you don’t understand much of what they say, it takes time to get used to.

10. Last but not least important, Cork City was named among the top 10 in the best cities to visit in the Lonely Planet guide’s ‘Best in Travel 2010′. http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/1103/123731-lonelyplanet/, and Ireland best country for doing business in 2014 according to Forbes: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/forbes-names-ireland-as-best-country-for-business-1.1617277

With that said, not everything in the garden is rosy:

– Childcare services are very expensive

– Health system could be seriously improved.

– Public transport it’s expensive.

– You may not find a direct connection to your City/Country from Cork Airport so then you have to fly from Dublin, it takes around 3 and a half hours by bus.

–  If you are not very religious person, most of the Public schools, also known as National Schools are under the control of Church Bodies. Only a 2% of the schools are multidenominational  (i.e. Educate Together), they have a great demand and it’s difficult to get a place.

Cost of Living for a family in Cork

The first thing you may want to check when you are thinking about moving to a new city/country,  is to find out the cost of living. Specially,  when you moved with your own family.

So, Unless you want to fail in your experience abroad, make sure you know well about this topic!

The goal of this post, is giving you some information about all these costs in one single post, basically something I couldn’t find when I was thinking to move here.

When I moved to Cork with my family about 2 years ago, I had searched the web for information about cost of living in Cork, I found fuzzy information mainly about Dublin, not much about Cork, just a few bits here and there. I wish I had found a post like that at that time.

Let’s get to the point! The money you need to cover the monthly basics expenses for a family in Cork City is an estimated amount between 1434€ and 2025€.

When it comes to cost of living, there is no a magic figure and it will depend on multiple factors.  The table below will list the main and basic expenses for a family, showing a min cost and a max cost. The figures are roughly made for a family between 3 and 5 members are based on our experience and the costs may vary depending on the lifestyle and priorities of each family.

Expense Type	Expense Description	Min Monthly Cost	Max Monthly cost
House Rent (1)	Apto/House 2 to 3 Bedrooms	900	1200
Electricity Bill	Electricity Bill monthly average	40	80
Natural Gas Bill	Gas Bill monthly average	60	90
Internet Bill	Internet Bill	40	60
Food	Supermarket shopping cart	300	500
Car Insurance (2)	Car Insurance expense spread along the year	35	45
Car Taxes	Car taxes expenses spread along the year	18	45
TV License	Tv lincense expense  160€ spread along the year	14	14
Helth Expenses	We’ll assume 3 visits to the GP per year(150€). No hospital, no Emergencies 🙂	12.5€	12.5€
Water Bill	160€/year	14€	14€
	TOTAL	1434.5€	2024.5€

 (1) The most realistic price range of house/aparment lettings in Cork is between 900€-1200€. 

(2)I do have a car, but the most of the expats families that I know, don’t. Cork is a small city and you can live without a Car, a bike can be very handy if you are working in the suburbs. Petrol expenses are not included in the table.

** At the end of 2014 there will be a new utility bill for water 😦

*** Childcare services and creches for children under three years are not covered by the Education Deparment. They are private and expensive, half day ≈ 30 €

Again this is not a scientific research, it’s just based on my own experience. I hope you find it useful!!

Irish Health System for Dummies I – General Information

Hi Expats,

For those who are coming from countries where to go to the doctor is free, the first experiences with the Irish Health System can be a bit shocking and confused, sometimes, even the locals are note able to explain you how it works :), and it takes a time to get a good understanding about it.

The aim of this posts is to explain briefly and clearly (I’ll try my best) based on my personal experience how the health system works for those families with neither a medical card nor a private health insurance nor an European Medical Card, we’ll try to cover these exceptions in another topics.

So, no medical card, no private insurance, no European medical card, ok? And we need to go to the doctor right?. I’ll simplify it in two main areas:

1. Primary Care (you have to pay, there are exceptions**).

Within the primary care there are a few options:

1.1   General Practitioners or Family Doctors (http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/2/gp/) .  They work Mon-Fri business hours. In other countries they assign you a family doctor, in Ireland not, here you have to choose your family doctor.

• Visit Fee  = 50 €

1.2   South Doc (http://www.southdoc.ie/) : They work 7 days a week from 6pm to 8am, basically they cover the out-of-business hours of Family doctors.

• Visit Fee = 60€

1.3   Hospitals Emergencies Departments: They work 7 days 24 hours.

• Visit Fee = 100€

2. Hospital Attention and Specialists Consultants. (Free when you are referred by a primary care body). But….. if for some reason you have to overnight in the hospital (hopefully not), guess what? Yes, you have to pay!

• Hospital nightly rate = 75€ with a limitation of 750€ per year, it means you just pay the first 10nights in a hospital.

An Irish friend once told me: “Ireland is not a good country to get sick”, definitely not!

**As mentioned before there are a few exceptions that comes to my mind where the attention is totally free:

• GP visits, nurse checks and hospital consultants related with the pregnancy period.
• GP and nurse scheduled health checks for babies.
• That´s will be new in 2014, free GP Care for all child under 5 years.

I hope you find the post useful and helpful. That said, all the information above comes from my family experience with the health system in Ireland, some of the things I mentioned  may have changed, or even the fees might be lightly different, so my recommendation is  always to double check it using the official HSE websites: www.hse.ie & http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/

Hopefully somebody else can share her/his experience using either a Medical Card, a private health insurance or the European Medical Card.

Stay tuned!!

Cheers,

Welcome to Cork Expats Families

We are just starting! This blog has born together with the facebook group ‘Cork Expats Families’. While the facebook group is aimed to address particular queries of the members about different topics. The idea of the blog is to have a place where families can post their experiences about different topics of their lifes in Cork (i.e. health system, have a baby in Cork, cars, house renting, schools, creches, activities for kids, social resources availables, etc)