The Bahamian Medical System: A View from the Ward - or - Shelagh’s Big Break: Lessons Learned

Shelagh and I wish to thank you for caring enough to continue reading to the end of the first part, let alone this far!  We want to share with you some of our Lessons Learned...

• Buy the travel insurance.  One misstep away from home could be financially ruinous without it.

• Activate WhatsApp on your phone before you leave.  Here’s how their website describes it: “More than 1 billion people in over 180 countries use WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends and family, anytime and anywhere. WhatsApp is free and offers simple, secure, reliable messaging and calling, available on phones all over the world.”  Basically, it allows you to use your phone for voice and text over WiFi.  But, you have to be able to receive texts to activate it, which is why I recommend activating before departure.  The app is so ubiquitous outside the US that Bahamians were astonished or dumbfounded when they said, “Just use WhatsApp!” and I said I didn’t have it (you know when your dog doesn’t comprehend something and cocks its head? It was like that).

• Passports.  Always take your passports.  If day-tripping to a Caribbean Island you are generally told you don’t need them.  This incident proves you do, indeed, need them.  If we hadn’t had them, the first parts of this story would be very different.  According to Adrian (who crossed himself, looked to the heavens and gave thanks, when I said we had them) I would have spent hour after hour at the US Embassy getting replacements, at a cost of about $500 each.  And if you don’t have a passport and are going day-tripping to the Caribbean, get one.  It’s easy, not inconvenient, and a helluva lot cheaper than not having one when you need it.

• If traveling overseas, make sure your two-factor authentication on your e-mail system doesn’t rely on your cell phone receiving a phone call or text message.  When I had to print insurance documents that were e-mailed to me, I wasn’t able to login to my Gmail account from the hotel business center because my cellphone couldn’t receive Google’s texted security code.  I was fortunate to have my laptop with me (a recognized device) to temporarily disable the authentication so I could use the business center computers.

• When you travel overseas to areas that clearly are not “first world” countries, remember that the people who prepare and serve your food, keep the hotel clean and generally make your life easy do not live in that comparative splendor, they only work there.  If you venture just two blocks outside the touristy areas you will see how they live.  Tip generously, even excessively.  You are travelling overseas so you can afford it and they could really use it.