10/08/2025
When the Unexpected Happens While Traveling !
What traveler hasn’t heard of someone who has been confronted with illness, injury or an emergency while vacationing or on a business trip that has turned their trip into a nightmare. It could be discovering the travel insurance purchased doesn’t cover their treatment or care, the treating hospital has now used all of their available insurance dollars, or that they are leaving the “family” to pay for a repatriation flight. Even while on a quick trip out of the province or country, an unexpected medical emergency can leave you unprepared to navigate the complex healthcare and medical transportation systems around the globe.
The processes to mitigate health care facilities and physicians vary between institutions, province and country, leaving the unprepared traveler and the family with an even greater dilemma during a stressful time. Rapid changes in technology and the impact of communicating across time zones, privacy issues, hours of operation, and specific requirements to access hospitals and physicians, all result in extreme difficulty sorting through the “red tape” families and patients have to navigate. Appropriate and effective decisions require critical assessment based on correct information. It can mean the difference between life or death.
O. Fee, Consular Case Manager of Foreign Affairs Canada states regarding Angels of Flight “Without your service and dedication, quite a few of my consular clients would not have managed to return to Canada - continue the great work.“
