Our General Medical Services
Pre-existing medical conditions
A pre-existing medical condition is any illness, injury or health symptom of any person, which the person is aware of that could potentially negatively impact on one’s health, or wellbeing, or before someone enrols in an activity.
Many health insurances exclude pre-existing medical conditions from their policy offer.
We, at Travel Care NZ do the opposite. We encourage anyone with a pre-existing medical condition to sign up to the service we provide.
Our senior medical specialists can help you plan for your trip, assist you in the preparations and guide you through your medical travel needs.
You can contact the travel care team for any of your needs, whether you want us to assist with any individual concerns or create a ‘Travel Care Plan’ for you.
If traveling with a pre-existing condition, please refer to the following descriptions for medical service assistance.
Pre-existing medical conditions may fall into one or several categories. In any case we will develop the right travel care plan with you.
- Allergies
- Alzheimer’s
- Anxiety
- Child asthma
- Diabetes
- Heart attack
- Heart failure
- Heart valve replacement
- Joint replacements
- Kidney or liver disease
- Lung diseases (COPD)
- Mobility impairment
- Obesity
- Osteoarthritis
- Parkinson
- Rheumatism
- Stroke
- Pacemaker
Our ‘Travel Care Plan’ is a simple medical plan agreed with you before travel to NZ, to help us assist you and your needs when traveling in NZ. Normally travel care plans are only recommended if you have a serious medical concern or condition.
Most travelers won’t need a ‘Travel Care Plan’. And will be traveling well. If anything, medical unexpectedly happens, we’ll figure out a Travel Care Plan together with you.
The ‘Travel Care Plan’ aim is providing support and monitoring of your condition where required.
A Travel Care Plan may include, extra individual non-medical support, or travel assistance options.
Just contact the team and we will discuss what we can do for you. No matter how large or small the request we will do our best to help. Contact info@travelcarenz.co.nz
Here are some medical scenarios as to why, a ‘Travel Care Plan’ is a good idea.
Example 1
Traveling with chronic obstructive lung disease (COPD) or asthma can be challenging
In a different country, the infectious diseases can be different resulting in less-than-optimal immune system response. The different environments (temperature, pollen, allergens) add to the lungs responding with increased secretion and closing of the airflow.
A comprehensive plan will look at your travel itinerary considering the seasons and the existing allergies in the locations you are looking to travel to while in New Zealand. Examining your current medication and the amount of lung function obstruction will give us an idea of the control of your lung function.
On arrival we can provide if needed certain medication in case of an exacerbation with detailed advice when and how to take those. We can organise and book allergy testing. Xray and or blood tests can be done to check for bacterial infections and other conditions.
Example 2
Osteoarthritis is the wear and tear of our joints.
- This can start at a young age and moving about can become slow and painful.
- We can go through your itinerary with you and identify possible mobility challenges.
- At all those areas we can mitigate as much as possible.
- We can provide you with a medical certificate stating your restricted mobility for parking.
- Pain medications can be prescribed by our clinicians to help you move around.
Example 3
Travel Anxiety
Traveling in a relatively unknown area can provoke anxiety in any of us. There are good interventions available to minimise anxiety. Explaining your potential health needs to a medical expert can reduce pre-existing anxiety before travel. A variety of pharmaceutical interventions can be available upon arrival as well as psychological intervention.