So the first summer month runs away, but we had used its possibility and had had our vacation. So the batteries are recharged and we full of energy and enthusiasm are coming back to work. In our previous article, we promised to tell you about the first aid travel kits and organizing of health care in a trip. So let's start.
Usually, there are two types of gathering first-aid travel kits. The first one is like taking the "common" medicines (for every one common has different content). The other one does not take anything because of medical insurance, superstitions, etc.
Both of these approaches have advantages and disadvantages. If you are taking medicines with you, you need to think about transportation, storing and expiration dates. On the other hand, you cannot be sure that medicines will be available immediately. In this article, we want to pay your attention not to the medical but to the organizational side of safety trips. We will leave medical issues to the professionals. An example of the first aid travel kit you may find on the website of the controller's office of the emergency service's and your physician may give you the list of medicines that will the best for you.
So what do you need to think about and what to remember when you are going to go on a trip:
1. Make a list of the most probable cases when you will likely need medical care and think of your actions. If it is necessary to refresh your skills on first-aid.
2. Think if there are people with special needs in your company during the trip and how you can help them. For example, talk to your pediatrician and prepare a proper first aid kit for kids or how to help in case of an allergy or diabetic attack.
3. While choosing the medicines give the preference to the ones that does not need special storage conditions. For example ointment, suspensions or solutions usually need specific temperature conditions.
4. Find out if there are any hospitals or drugstores nearby your future stay. Think about where the ambulance car can get, how-to guide a driver or where to meet. Bear in mind that in a case when access will not be safe you need to call for an emergency team who will bring a patient to health professionals.
5. Check and renew your medical ID if you have any. Any information like allergy, illnesses or surgeries, blood type and Rh factor could be helpful to health professionals. Mentioning a next of kin, the person who will be the best in communicating with your relatives will decrease stress.
6. If you are travelling alone make a list of available medicines and which are symptoms for their usage. If it is necessary translate this list and your medical ID so that people could help you.
7. For a child or an elderly it would be useful to have a bracelet cell phone with a GPS tag that will make an emergency call to the programmed telephone number.
Also, we would like to mention that in accordance with the contact centers OKKO, KLO and Amic filling complexes are providing their first aid kits to travellers. You will need to check if a first aid kit is available on specific filling complexes of SOCAR and WOG. From our side, we would like to share that all filling complexes that were checked by our team had had the first aid kits and had been available for travellers (names are not mentioned for the avoidance of advertisement).
We were confirmed by the controller's office of the emergency service's that health professionals are taking into account next of kin information and medical IDs or bracelets. So the medical bracelet made as jewellery could save the life and correct next of kin person will find the best way to deliver bad news to your relatives.
One more useful tool that could be used is your cell phone or tablet. We found a lot of different applications that would be helpful for arranging a first aid kit or provide first aid itself. Some apps are free some are not, some of them are homegrown, some are not. You will have a wide choice. Some producers of cell phones are providing medical ID in a basic configuration. By turns, we would like to highlight the application Dopomoga that was created by Kyivstar and Borys (sorry for the advertisement here, but we could not find anything similar to it and it is absolutely free). This service is giving you the opportunity to call an ambulance, manage of first aid kit, information about the nearest hospital location, symptoms of the attacks and video instructions on first aid (available in Ukrainian only).
We would like to mention that information and examples provided above are of a merely informative nature. The given examples are results of longstanding experience and researches. Although they are confirmed by professionals, checked in real life, renewed during vacation - it is your responsibility to use or not to use the provided practices.
Hope to see You soon!