Planning a Trip Abroad?
As when travelling anywhere on homePEN, you will want to know about the health care resources available to you when travelling abroad. In many ways it is even more important to do your research when travelling outside your native country because of the potential for insurance issues, language barriers, and differences in customs/procedures. You will likely want to know the nearest hospital that can handle an HPEN patient, where you can obtain home care supplies, or at least the safest way to have them shipped to/brought with you.
One way to get make your research easier is to correspond with a homePEN patient or family living in the country you are travelling to. Oley is happy to try to connect you to such a patient wherever possible, though admittedly, the vast majority of our members are from the US. The other possibility is to hook up with another homePEN association like the Oley Foundation. Oley is aware of the associations listed in the sidebar below. If you know of others, please send us all relevant details (name of organization, contact person, address, phone, email, etc.).
We also recommend speaking with fellow homePEN consumers from your own country who have travelled abroad. The sidebar includes a list of consumers from North America who are happy to share their experiences and tips.
Finally, we recommend reviewing the articles Oley has published on travel tips. These are available on our website at http://www.oley.org/lifeline/travindex.html, or by calling us at (800) 776-OLEY.
Foreign Organizations for HPEN Consumers
Canadian Parenteral-Enteral Nutrition
Association
http://www.cpena.ca
LaVie Par Un Fil (French)
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/lavieparunfil/
(English Translation available)
PINNT (British)
http://www.pinnt.com
The Swedish Society for HPN, Children & Youth
http://www.dataphone.se/~hpn/index.htm
Oley Consumers Who’ve Travelled Abroad
Ann DeBarbieri (518) 587-0373 paulannd@earthlink.net
Don Freeman (613) 825-4321 donfreeman@sympatico.ca
Robin Lang (207) 363-7880 ivtpn@maine.rr.com
Sheila Messina (408) 978-0466 sheila.messina@gte.net
Eleanor Orkis (518) 377-0526 saintemo7@aol.com
Judy Peterson (619) 226-2061 catsjp@juno.com
Liz Tucker (952) 435-0013 evtucker@charter.net