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| - For those headed to exotic destinations, do you know what kind of Infectious Diseases you might be exposed to? The Travel Clinic on Queen East, specializes in international travel medicine and can provide you with a handout on possible risks found in your destination.
If you go to your regular doctor for a prescription for travel-related vaccines, they are required by OHIP to charge you for that visit. Your regular doctor probably doesn't know the rates of Malaria in Thailand vs South Africa, but you'll be paying for them to look it up.
At the Travel Clinic on Queen East, call ahead to make an appointment. Just because you are paying don't expect gold-plated, walk-in service. Appointments can generally be made within a week.
But, plan ahead, sometimes you need multiple doses of vaccine given a month apart, before you depart.
Once you arrive, the waiting room is entirely too small, and the layout is awkward. In the cramped space, you fill out a 3 page form on your risk factors, destination and medical history and provide them with your vaccination history. BRING YOUR VACCINATION RECORD WITH YOU.
Next, a nurse/clerk will ensure that you filled out the info correctly in another part of the clinic, but beware that this is not sound-proof and the whole waiting area knows you are going to Vietnam and your embarrassing medical problem.
Then you wait some more before going in to see the doctor. He ensures that you are up to date on all the potential vaccines you may require. But watch out for the up-sell. Not everyone needs every vaccine and if you don't know anything about your risk factors, you may end up with 5 shots today.
Then you've got your prescription, and some flyers, but you've got to pay. Being an American, I know all about paying at the Doctor's office. But this is novel for most Canadians and why most family docs don't even want to see travel patients, because they don't have a system to bill you, or cash or credit card machines on hand.
After you pay for all your shots, you go in to the final stop (if you need shots) and roll up your sleeve, look the other way at Mickey Mouse- and this will only hurt for a second.... OUCH!
Now, go next door and make it all better with a chocolate croissant from Bonjour Brioche.
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