Have a safe and happy summer vacation

Five hospitals sit within an easy drive of my home. It’s comforting to know, considering that my wife will deliver our second child in late August.

But that information will become temporarily useless next month when we take our annual family vacation to a small town. The lack of beach-side maternity services won’t keep us from making the trip. It just requires planning and prudent steps that doctors recommend for all travellers, regardless of whether they are great with child.

Here are some health care considerations to think about before hopping in a car or plane for your summer vacation.

1. DO A LITTLE RESEARCH

If you’re staying somewhere for more than a few days, do a quick Internet search to learn what health care help might be available, especially if you have a medical condition.

It’s not enough to just know what’s available. Know the hospitals and what they can offer.

Check your insurance plan. What does it cover?

Depending on the plan, a patient may have to pay a separate deductible. You also could pay a higher co-insurance percentage. That’s the amount of the bill leftover after the deductible is met.

On top of all that, the doctor or hospital can bill patients for the balance between what they charge and what the insurer pays. All this can add up to extra expenses.

2. PACK SMARTLY

Make sure your prescriptions are updated and filled. Bring more than just the medicines or vitamins you take daily. Include things like an inhaler if you have occasional bouts of asthma or Benadryl if that’s your go-to treatment for an allergy flare-up.

Bring a form with your medical history if you have an ongoing or chronic condition, allergies or something unusual like a rare blood type.

You may also want to bring your doctor’s contact information and a list of medications with specific doses. Patients with heart conditions also should pack a copy of results from their latest electrocardiogram, or EKG, which measure a heart’s electrical activity.

My wife’s form might include a summary from her doctor detailing how the pregnancy has gone so far and how the last one went with our first child. Any complications like a C-section should be noted in a summary like this.

Aside from that form, we’re also packing an infant car seat and base, just in case.

3. AVOID WAITING TOO LONG

Don’t let your desire to relax and have fun on the vacation prevent you from acting quickly if necessary.

Seek emergency care immediately if you have anything abnormal happens to you on vacation.

At the very least, ask the hotel’s front desk for the phone number to a local emergency room. Many have a nurse who can offer advice.

If your problem isn’t urgent, seek other options. Drugstore health clinics can handle relatively minor problems like the flu or a sinus infection. Urgent care centers frequently are staffed by doctors and can offer a deeper level of care by handling some broken bones or lacerations.

Many patients wait too long before seeking help because they don’t want to interrupt their hike up the volcano or day of sunbathing.

The consequences from waiting too long are obvious when a woman goes into labour. Not so much if you scrape your skin on coral.

If the scrape becomes red and swollen, that could be a sign you have a methicillin-resistant staph, or MRSA, infection. Patients die or lose limbs due to these severe infections.

-Associated Press