Ever need medical help while travelling or abroad?

I was traveling in Thailand when my 4 year old began to get more lethargic over several days. Finally it was getting so bad I felt we had to do something. Loaded in the back of a small pick up truck we took him to the hospital in Chiang Mai.
The other patients looked so horrible and desperately poor I felt guilty. My son at his sickest still looked well clothed and well fed. The doctor examined my son (I don’t recall if an x-ray was taken or not.) and declared.“This boy is very sick. He has a pneumonia.” She gave us some antibiotics and in 2 days my son was his old self again.
I had some fancy-shmancy, international, government backed, good as gold insurance coverage but it was not used at all. They were not interested in that. The bill came to $5.00, for the hospital and doctor visit and $0.25, yes, 25 cents, for the meds. (Amoxicillin?)
That was 25 years ago so figure 3x to adjust for inflation. ($15 and $0.75 in today’s $)
It was a gift and a positive cultural experience that has stayed with us all these years.

I also know a guy who had his prostate removed in Thailand and while he was not happy about having to lose it he was pleased with the results.

I had to go to the doctor while in the Dominican Republic for a reaction to a shot. My SIL was living there at the time, so I was able to go to her doctor.

My SIL went to the doctor while traveling in Italy. Wound up she was pregnant. Her husband is Italian. I don’t know if they went to a doctor his family uses, or if they were in another part of Italy.

An employee of mine became extremely such in South Africa. He wound up hospitalized. He said he was abused in the first hospital. His parents eventually had him transferred to another hospital where he recovered. He was in hospital for two weeks. I don’t remember what he was sick with.

A client of mine, their 19 year old daughter became ill while doing a semester in Spain. Her family was wealthy. They flew in the best doctors in the field, I don’t remember what she was I sick with either. Their daughter died in Spain. It was heartbreaking.

My Russian girlfriend had to go to the ER the last time she was visiting Russia. She hadn’t lived there in 15 years. I don’t know if that counts?

I buy medical travel insurance sometimes. My parents always do.

I got severe food poisoning just as I was about to board a flight from Buenos Aires to Sydney. It is a 16 hour flight. The air crew were fantastic (I love Qantas), but could do little. They had an ambulance waiting for me on the tarmac at Sydney. So yeah I needed medical assistance abroad, but I had to wait it out until I arrived home.

I have to go to a trade show to Vegas every year and so far 6 out of the 18 times I have been there I have had the flu. One time was so bad I could not leave the room and had to call a rent a doc to come treat me. I survived.

Not sure if Vegas is traveling abroad, but it does suck to be sick when out if town.

If I got sick 30% if the time going to a city I don’t know if I would be still willing to go. I’ve been sick 3 times in three months working at my new job, I’m rarely sick my entire life. I’m seriously thinking about quitting. It’s not the only reason why I’m thinking about it, but it is in the top 2 reasons.

I lived in Germany for 6 months and had to see a doctor while I was there for a sinus infection. I knew what it was and what I wanted because I’d been through it before but I still let him talk me into trying 50 euros worth of homeopathic shit that did nothing so I was sick for an extra week before I got antibiotics and it could clear up. At the pharmacies there they only have like make up and bathroom type stuff out on the shelves and you have to ask for anything else from behind the counter and lots of stuff is prescription there that you can just buy off the shelf or over the counter here in Australia. Mildly frustrating. I had to pay up front and claim on a special student/intern insurance for foreign students they have and it took like 2 months for them to give the money back to me but I got it eventually. I had comprehensive travel insurance too that I probably could have claimed on instead but I thought the German one would be easier.

I alerted my insurance before traveling in asia back in 2010. I got lucky, tripped over a Bamboo Viper on a remote mountain jungle trail in natl. park in Taiwan, 4 hours from the nearest medical help. Whew…had I been bitten I could become very sick. They look like lime green rattlesnakes, exactly!

In 2006 my travel companion and I both came down with a wicked flu while traveling for 2 weeks in the Southwest. Dying in a hotel room in New Mexico for 4 days before we could soldier on feebley.
Miserable doesn’t even begin to express the suffering. lol