Felicity: Morning Mr. and Mrs. Hartman, I have a man here from Discovery Health and he wants to shoot your son. He is specifically looking for a white boy to shoot.
Me: He wants to shoot my son? Are you being serious?
Felicity: *laughs*, no sir, he is here to do a TV advert for Discovery Health and wants to know if you’ll be willing to let them use your son for the advert. They will pay you of course.

Hmm… I started to see a couple dollar signs.

Colette: Could we get free medical aid?
Felicity: *laughs* – I don’t know.
Me: Ok bring him in. We can’t guarantee anything but we’re willing to chat.

In steps Maurice, seemingly not from Discovery but rather the film crew involved in the Discovery advert.

Maurice: Hi folks, congratulations on the birth of your new child. We’re shooting an ad for Discovery and we need a white, newborn baby to complete the scene.
Me: What exactly would my son have to do?
Maurice: Well the scene would involve having your son put into an incubator and then the tough-looking father comes in and touches his hand.
Me: ok…
Maurice: If you agree to let us use your son for the advert I’d have to drive to Pretoria so I can get him a work-permit.

A work-permit? What for? Oh wait, he’s under 16… never mind that he’s less than 2 days old.

Colette: When is the advert being shot?
Maurice: Tuesday morning.
Colette: That’s going to be a problem because Tuesday morning is when our son’s Bris is taking place.
Maurice: Oh…
Maurice: Can’t you change the date?

My wife chuckles because a Bris has to be done 8-days after the baby is born.

Colette: No.
Me: Sorry Maurice, but we’re just not going to be able to do this. Thanks for your time and sorry!

*Maurice scampers off disappointed*

In recent weeks Luke had a minor operation and Colette had an Amniocentesis to test for downs-syndrome in our unborn son.

I’ve just received my medical aid statement for November from Discovery and below is a breakdown of the costs incurred.

You can see that the total cost for both procedures was R9,024.09. Of that I have to pay R4,271.99 and an amount of R2,085.43 was paid directly from my savings account. This means that Discovery’s total liability was only R2,666.67 – the rest is paid using my money.

Now I might be missing the point here but how is it possible that a medical aid company only covers 29.5% of hospital procedures? It’s not like we went to some designer optician and spent R9,000 on matching his and her glasses – these were both hospital induced costs and I find myself paying more than 70% of the total bill.

I’m wondering if a hospital plan is not a better option for me seeing as I pay a fortune for Discovery each month and ultimately end up paying most of bills anyway?

Pathetic!