The first hour: establish a line of communication
Everything gets easier once you have a real person at the hospital. Switchboards and social media messages will not get you what you need.
If you were called by a stranger, a hotel, a tour operator or a fellow traveller, ask them for the hospital's name and location before you hang up. If your parent was travelling alone and you have not been contacted by anyone official, the Australian consulate can often help locate them.
- Write down the hospital name, city, ward and a direct phone number.
- Get the name of a treating doctor or nurse manager, and the hours they are on shift in your time zone.
- Ask one clear question: is my parent stable, and are they able to speak or make decisions?
- Ask whether they will release medical information to you, and what authority they need to do so.
- Note the time difference and set alarms. You will otherwise call at 3am local and reach nobody useful.
Find the insurance, then call the insurer before anything else
Even families who are sure there is no insurance often find some. Check the travel policy, the credit card the trip was paid on, private health cover, an employer or professional association policy, and any cover attached to a tour, cruise or package booking.
When you find one, call the 24-hour emergency assistance number on it and open a case. This matters even if you end up paying privately: an open case with a case number puts the insurer's medical officer in touch with the hospital, and it preserves your ability to claim later.
What to have in front of you when you call the insurer
- Policy number and the policyholder's name and date of birth.
- Travel dates and departure date from Australia.
- Hospital name, city and treating doctor.
- A one-sentence description of what happened and when.
- Whether your parent has any pre-existing conditions that were declared.
Ask for a medical report in writing
Nothing can be planned without it. Insurers will not authorise, airlines will not clear, hospitals at home will not accept, and no transport provider can quote honestly without a current written report from the treating team.
Ask for diagnosis, current condition and stability, oxygen requirements, medications, mobility, any lines or drains, infection status, and the treating doctor's opinion on fitness to travel. Ask for it in English if that is available, and give written permission for it to be sent directly to the insurer and to any transport provider you are speaking to.
Decide whether you need to fly out
This is a genuinely hard decision and there is no universally right answer. Some families need to be there. But it is worth being clear-eyed: if your parent is unconscious or sedated, and you would be sitting in an unfamiliar city with no local language, you may achieve more from home where you can call insurers, hospitals and providers during business hours.
If you do go, take copies of everything: passport details, insurance documents, your parent's medication list and their Medicare details. Expect to spend most of your time on the phone rather than at the bedside.
- Reasons to go: decisions need a family member physically present, your parent is alone and distressed, or belongings and paperwork need retrieving.
- Reasons to stay: you are the one coordinating insurance and the receiving hospital, and those calls are easier from home.
- Either way, nominate one family member as the single point of contact for the hospital, insurer and provider. Multiple callers slow everything down.
Start the receiving hospital conversation early
If your parent will still need hospital care when they arrive, a hospital in Australia has to accept them and have a bed on the day. This is often the slowest link in the chain, and it can be started before any transport is booked.
Call their GP or treating specialist at home. A clinician-to-clinician referral moves much faster than a family request. Ask what the receiving unit needs from the overseas hospital, and pass that request straight back through your point of contact there.
Understand your realistic options for getting them home
There are three broad ways an unwell person travels internationally, and the choice is made on clinical grounds rather than preference.
- Ask any provider you speak to whether a medical escort would be clinically acceptable. It is dramatically cheaper than a charter.
- Ask what is included: ground ambulances at both ends are the most common hidden gap.
- Get any quote in writing with the assumptions stated.
| Option | When it applies | Rough cost order |
|---|---|---|
| A nurse or doctor travelling with them on a normal flight | Stable, can sit or recline, needs supervision | Lowest |
| A stretcher installed in a scheduled airliner | Stable but cannot sit upright | Moderate |
| A dedicated air ambulance | Unstable, ventilated, critical or time-critical | Highest |
What you can leave until tomorrow
In the first day, families exhaust themselves on things that do not move the case forward. Belongings at a hotel, insurance paperwork beyond the case number, arguments about who should have travelled where, and price comparisons before a medical report exists can all wait.
What cannot wait: a clinical contact at the hospital, an open insurance case, a request for the medical report, and the first call to your parent's doctor at home about a receiving bed.