Always travel with a Medical
Travel Certificate if you have diabetes, are using growth hormones, antiTNF or
any other medication that needs to stay cool.
This completely free
document is completely meaningless
yet essential. It is a document that
states that you are affected with a chronic disease and that you are treated
with medication that is injected and that you are allowed to carry injection
needles and drugs and that these drugs must be kept between 2 and 8°C during
travel.
A travel certificate is like a magic wand when
traveling.
I use a travel certificate
all the time. When I first started traveling with fragile medication, I dreaded
the experience every time I went through customs. As my hand luggage would go through
the x-ray machine, all the alarms would go off because of the syringes and
medical paraphernalia in my luggage. The fact that I was also using medication
that required frozen cooling gel packs didn’t help either… Inevitably I would
hear that ominous slapping sound of the rubber gloves, for that full body
cavity search…
Now, I simply arrive at
the customs, and before my bag goes through the x-ray machine I simply wave my
certificate BEFORE I send my bag through to tell them that the alarm will sound…
Works every time… I think that there is also a certain psychological element to
this. The fact that you tell the customs officer that you are sick, that you
are carrying fragile medication, but that you are mentally well-prepared and
have all the necessary documentation makes him/her feel valorized in their job,
and at the same time sorry for you. So they are inevitably very kind and will
bend themselves backwards for you. About the same way that everyone is kind to
a person in a wheelchair in an airport.
There is no excuse for being stupid, and even less
for being rude…
Another similar situation is
the supply of special dietary requirements on a long flight. As you all know,
you can basically get anything you want if you notify them in advance, from vegan,
to vegetarian, to special diabetic meals. I have been several times in a
situation where I order my special dietary requirement in advance and am actually
served BEFORE everyone else, and with a smile… There is however nothing worse
for those gentle airline stewardesses than to be insulted by a grumpy traveller
who decides at the last minute that he is suddenly a “vegetarian” or wants a
diabetic meal and then whines like a stuck pig because his last minute
“requirement” is not available.
So be prepared… Get
certified… Be friendly… It’s free and useful, and the world will give it back
to you in spades.
You can download a Travel
Certificate for free on the MedActiv website, together with other goodies on http://medactiv.com/en/content/134-documentation-2.
Uwe DIEGEL
udiegel@medactiv.com
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