Find an English-speaking doctor abroad

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Find an English-speaking doctor abroad 03/08/2004 00:00

For over 30 years, the Canada-based non-profit IAMAT has helped travellers find medical help in English. Could IAMAT fill the holes in your expat's local health plan?

Sidebar: What does the

individual get from IAMAT?

The International Medical Association for Medical Assistance to Travellers (IAMAT) is a non-profit foundation that aims to provide travellers across the world with information and medical care without which they could be putting their lives at risk.

Established in 1960, the organisation now has contacts with medical experts in 125 countries worldwide. Once an individual becomes an IAMAT member, he can enjoy fixed-rate services from participating hospitals, clinics, physicians and specialists.

Benefits for HR

The main advantages of the scheme for expatriates and the HR professionals managing them are two-fold. First, the seriously ill expatriate will have more options besides paying extortion-level prices to ensure he receives his urgent medical treatment.

This means HR professionals can avoid having to reimburse expatriate workers for expensive foreign treatment.

Secondly, even if the HR department pays for the expatriate staff to "go native" and have access to local health care, expatriates with little proficiency in the local language could be uncomfortable or put off by consulting local medical experts for fear of not being understood.

With IAMAT, expatriates are directed to medical experts who speak fluent English. Moreover, all have been trained by western medical institutions and are therefore familiar with western practices.

For HR departments, this means workers abroad are less likely to feel isolated at a time when they need support. Such moves will be far more likely to make an expatriate feel properly cared by his company than a calculated scheme of perks and incentives.

Costs

It costs nothing to join IAMAT although the organisation is not shy about asking for a donation.

However this is not the case for certain services, such as a series of 24 individual charts for 60 cities and other pamphlets with in-depth data on sanitary conditions of food, milk and water, local temperatures, advised clothing, tropical diseases, malaria prophylaxis and other tropical diseases and immunisation requirements.

This service is clearly something that has to be paid for, even if the company rhetoric almost makes it sound as if it is for free - "a minimum donation of USD 25 entitles members to receive these charts" states IAMAT's website.

What does the individual get from IAMAT?

Membership card. The card identifies the bearer as an IAMAT member and entitles him to services with participating medical experts at fixed rates.

World directory. The directory of IAMAT physicians guides members to these medical centers and physicians in 125 countries and regions. Telephone numbers are included. Note: IAMAT physicians agree to a set payment schedule for members, referrals, consultations and laboratory procedures, but the cost of hospitalizations and other medical services are not fixed.

Traveler clinical record. A passport-size record that your doctor can complete before you leave home and which will serve as a readily accessible and complete medical history for the foreign doctor. The record includes emergency medical data, glasses prescription, diagnostic summary, and immunizations, plus sections for those with diabetes, a cardio-vascular condition, or allergies.

World immunisation chart. Advice on immunisations and preventative measures for 200 countries and territories for rabies, smallpox, cholera, viral hepatitis, typhus, typhoid fever, yellow fever, diphtheria, polio, plague and tetanus.

World malaria risk chart and protection guide. Assesses the risk of malaria in specific regions and suggests what steps to take before, during and after your stay in the country or territory. The anti-malarial drug chart features names of relevant drugs, manufacturers, generic names, dosages, and frequencies.

World schistosomiasis risk chart and information brochure. These highlight risk areas and outline preventative measures to avoid the disease.

The Chagas' disease risk chart and information guide. Relevant for travelers to Central and South America. Information on this widespread infection; highlights risk areas and outlines appropriate protective measures.

For additional cost: a portable mosquito bed to protect against mosquitoes along with spiders, ticks, beetles, flies, roaches, assassin bugs and bed bugs costs USD 110 plus postage. A set of 24 world climate charts covering 60 cities is USD 25.

Source: IAMAT

Canada-based IAMAT President Assunta Marcolongo says expatriates will find the service highly useful though expatriate administrators should be aware of the difference in price. "IAMAT services are of value to any traveller, including expats. Although IAMAT physicians have agreed to fixed fees for the first consultation, we still suggest that all travellers carry insurance."

Companies and HR departments must register all their expats individually, Marcologo adds. "They will then receive membership cards and packages of publications for each traveller, but for this service they must send a donation."

History

IAMAT was founded after the late Italian doctor, Vincenzo Marcolongo, realized that an expatriate patient would most probably have died had she not received treatment based on knowledge of her home country.

A local physician who did not speak English sent a young North American traveler, who was suffering from general weakness and a severe temperature, to Dr. Marcolongo.

The young woman had been traveling around Europe and had taken an aspirin tablet for a headache. Aspirin can, in some cases, destroy the white blood cells of people with a white Anglo-Saxon background. Because the doctor had trained in Canada and spoke English, he was aware of this critical fact. Following a blood transfusion and intensive treatment, the woman fully recovered.

The doctor realized that without his medical training from North America, he would have immediately prescribed the very medicine that was causing the woman's suffering.

He then set about contacting English-speaking doctors all over the world that had received Western medical training. What was originally an informal network has since evolved into the sophisticated scheme IAMAT operates now.

The organisation continues to inspect the clinics, hospitals and physicians' offices around the world that it recommends to travellers and expatriates.

Necessary for expatriates?

Whilst an English-language medical service appears a dream come true for the expatriate community, not all believe the service is necessary.

A spokeswoman for the UK-based Medical Association for Travellers Abroad (MASTA) says "hardly anyone" is concerned about having English-language doctors.

"Millions of people backpack around the world every year, going through such places as India, and they do alright," she says. "Obviously they take insurance, but it's really not a problem about whether the local country speaks English or not."

The spokeswoman suggests that the local embassy can arrange for a translator or an English-speaking doctor and advises expatriates and travellers to contact their embassy before they go abroad.

Cincinnati Milacron UK Limited is the corporate focus factory for the design, manufacture, sales and marketing of lathes, grinders and other multi-purpose machining tools. Although the company used to have many traditional expatriates, it now tends to operate short-term international assignments. HR manager Linda Green says that while the English language treatment IAMAT offers is very impressive, the best bet for seriously ill expatriate staff is simply to fly them home.

"There's no point looking at getting involved in local health systems for our overseas workers," Green explains. "We liase with clients who we trust and then who make sure that the person has immediate medical access via the local system if they are serious. However, in all cases we would far rather fly them home."

According to Green, an expatriate worker in India once smashed the bone in the back of his heel. Because he was working in such a remote location, he had no access to decent treatment. "In the end we had him flown home and treated at a local Birmingham clinic. It was hugely expensive but worth it."

Green says companies must look after their workers. "They are very precious to us so we always foot the bill, even if its very expensive - and this certainly was."

March 2002

UK-based freelance journalist Rob Hyde is a regular contributor to Expatica HR. A British national, Rob has lived and worked in England, France, Germany and Austria. His work has appeared in The Times, The Sunday Express and the Wall Street Journal Europe.