One of the things every tourist frets is travelling to a foreign country and getting hurt or sick on vacation. Even for locals, suddenly finding yourself in need of medical attention can be a start of a burdensome process of looking for the closest health clinic or trying to find another doctor if yours is currently on holiday. Add to that the language barrier and not being acquainted with the healthcare system in a foreign country, and it gets more than obvious why having health issues while travelling is an understandably worrisome prospect.
It would be incredibly helpful to have a handy guide that would point you in the right direction, wouldn’t it? Istria takes the lead on this front with a new guide through health services with all required information tourists might need. The guide was put together and published by the county’s Administrative Department for Health and Social Care, in collaboration with the Istria Tourist Board.
Listed are all public health institutions providing health services to tourists during summer months of 2017, and the original Croatian text is translated into English, Italian and German. The guide also lists websites of hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, but as most of them don’t offer any other language option except Croatian, it’s really useful to at least have the basic information and advice in one place.
The guide is intended both for tourists and professionals working in tourism, so they could get acquainted with different types of health services and be able to provide information to guests in need.
You can now easily find advice on where to head in case of emergency situations that might endanger your life or severely harm your general health, as well as places that provide care to patients with acute illnesses and non life-threatening conditions. During the summer season, tourist infirmaries are operating in Umag, Poreč, Rovinj, Labin and Pula, and the guide lists working hours for all five. There’s also a lot of information on other health professionals you might need, such as pediatricians, gynecologists and dentists, as well as locations of attendant pharmacies and instructions on what to do if you get examined and then referred to the hospital.
The guide is available online as a pdf file, so if you’re planning a visit to Istria, you can download it here to have it on hand. We hope you won’t need it, but better to be safe than sorry, right? Congratulations to Istria for such a great initiative, and here’s a nudge to other counties to follow the example!
Source: hrturizam
