Aussie Friends - Need travel advice...

[Mehita]

My 14 year old Crohnnie was granted a wish, so we will be traveling from the US to Australia this summer. Exciting, yet a bit scary too!

Here are some questions we came up with. We'd appreciate any suggestions or advice.

If he were to fall ill, where is the best place, preferably pediatric and preferably with gastro staff, to take him in Sydney? Same question for Phillip Island. I presume we'd have to go to Melbourne?

Are there any highly contagious illnesses making the news there? Similar to the measles in the UK.

Besides Crohn's, he also has Celiac so needs to eat gluten free. Will we have trouble finding places to eat? There is a labeling law for gluten, right? And it's 20ppm?

Odd question, but are there any IBD medical terms that might be different there than in the US?

Totally open on suggestions for things to do and places to stay in Sydney, but would prefer that in a PM. I think our Phillip Island itinerary is pretty much set.

Thanks!

 

[afidz]

Never been there, but Congrats on the wish being granted!!

 

[DustyKat]

Woohoo! :dusty::dusty::dusty:

Re Sydney:

There are two dedicated children’s hospitals in Sydney and each have specialist IBD units:

-Sydney Children’s hospital is on the Prince of Wales hospital campus at Randwick and is affiliated with the University of NSW. It is located about 6 kilometres from Sydney CBD.

-Westmead Children’s hospital is located about 28 kilometres west of the Sydney CBD and is primarily affiliated with the University of Sydney.

At this time there are no highly contagious disease outbreaks. We are in Autumn now so do you mean you will be travelling here in your Summer?
Fluvax started rolling out a couple of months ago so most have been immunised by now. No issues with that thus far and last Winter proved no major outbreaks of Flu.

Australia and New Zealand have the strictest gluten free guidelines in the world. When you see gluten free here it means that there must be no detectable gluten whatsoever and IIRC that means it would be less than 3ppm as that is as sensitive as testing equipment can go.
Eating out should not be too difficult as the hospitality industry is generally pretty sensitive to gluten free dietary needs and most places cater for it with GF options. It is also easy to pick GF products in supermarkets.

Other than spelling differences the terms are the same. The one spelling difference that you will notice is Celiac. Medically you will find that with British English, which Australia follows, a number of conditions or anatomical terms have an O in front of the E, so here Celiac is spelt Coeliac, Esophagus is spelt Oesophagus.
Actually on second thoughts I have noticed a couple of terms used on here that we don’t use. We don’t say Pink Eye, we say conjunctivitis and we don’t tend to use the term Stomach Flu, we usually used the shortened form of Gastroenteritis…Gastro. Of course there are far more colourful terms than Gastro but we won’t go there! :lol:

Dusty.

 

[pattle66]

Congrats on coming to this great country!

The only thing that I would add is if you have any issues seeing a GI in Sydney or Melbourne I would ask your own GI if he can call on your behalf. I remember being in the UK and having severe pain. I went to the GP to get a referral to a GI and the appointment came through for 3 months later. There was no way I could wait that long without getting into emergency territory. I rang my GI in Australia who rang a colleague in the UK. The next day I was seen and scheduled the following day for a colonoscopy and the day after that had a resection. Sometimes it isn't what you know but who you know!

Hopefully you will not not need to see anyone while you are here. Enjoy your holiday.

 

[Catherine]

I believe the trip is in the US summer (August) which makes it winter here.

There is one Children's Hospital in the state of Victoria which is the Royal Children's

http://www.rch.org.au/home/

It look like the new children hospital is open at Monash (Clayton).

http://www.monashchildrens.org.au/p...cement_for_Monash_Childrens_Hospital_Project/

 

[DustyKat]

I will send you a PM later today Mehita.

One thing though, if you are going to hire a car remember we drive on the opposite side to you. :eek2:

Dusty.