Hi,

I have moved your post to our General Advice section where there is a greater audience, hopefully resulting in some sound advise.

Mark

I'm afraid that you really don't have much choice about this. You don't have to get them done through your GP - you could get them through a specialist travel clinic but they are likely to charge even more. This is something that GPs have a fairly free hand over and policies vary between practices. Mine has always given me prescriptions for any holiday meds they recommended and I've never paid more than the prescription charge for each jab but others take the view that they see no reason why the NHS should subsidise holidays to exotic locations, especially where the patient wants something that is not compulsory.

For example, you didn't need a Yellow Fever certificate to travel to The Gambia when I went and my GP didn't recommend it so if I'd insisted on it I'd have had to pay for a private prescription. On the other hand they gave me the Polio, Diptheria and Tentanus boosters free on the grounds that they kept them in stock and everybody in this country should keep those up to date, I paid the standard prescription charge for the Hep ones and bought the recommended Malaria prophylactic over the counter as that was cheaper than doing it on proscription.

Having had Yellow Fever jabs in the past and found they made me very ill I didn't need much persuading not to bother with it. Some people do say that without it and a valid certificate that you run the risk of not being admitted to other countries if they find that you have visited The Gambia without having it done but I've never encountered difficulties despite having entrance and exit stamps in my pasport.

SM

We had the yellow fever jabs the first time we went to The Gambia. Have been 4 timesand have never been asked for the certificate.
Our GP gave us the polio,diptheria,tetanus and typhoid but we didnt pay for them.
Only thing we pay for now are the malaria tablets.
Hope you enjoy your visit - where are you staying?

Thanks for the advice
We are staying at the Combo Beach Hotel which is where i stayed on my own(before kids etc!!) in 1984 and as I booked 1 wk before i went I had to have YF jab at Gatwick!! They didn't ask for a cert then either.
It may be worth a visit to one of the more "tame" GP's to see if I can get the vaccine on prescription but GP's these days like to get as much a sthey can for al this kind of thing(I should get some kind of perk as a retired SRN I think!!)
Alison

I doubt that any GP other than the one you are registered with would consider giving you these jabs. It sems a bit extreme to consdier re-registering with another one just for sake of holiday jabs!

SM

you are misunderstanding what I wrote.There is no way i would re register I just meant making an appointment within my practice

Not all GPs can administer the yellow fever vacinne. I used to work for the only GP in our town who was authorised to prescribe it, so yes another GP other than your own would do it, but I think you'd find the costs roughly similar. I don't think its expensive when you think of the protection is gives you and it does last 10 years.

Bit reckless I know but I never bothered with Jabs, all I think you need is Malaria treatment. If your only doing a hotel,beach, pool thing its unlikely your going to expose yourself to the worser diseases.
Save your cash and just get some Malaria tabs from the Doc

Bit reckless I know but I never bothered with Jabs

Why bother with the Malaria tablets then?

You do not need to bother with any of the jabs or tablets - That is until you catch a nasty.

Then see what your insurance company say when you try to claim.

Everyone has a duty of care - if not for your own sake but your family and people you may pass it onto.

Everybody thinks it will not happen to them. Until it does!

fwh

Its all about whether you listen to the hype and hysteria that goes with your standard package operator. As I have always travelled independently I do not read brochures and all the "recommendations" that go with them.

I agree if you are the panicky sort and are used to a standard 2 weeks in Spain each year the thought of going somewere like this would scare the pants of you and you would take every precaution known to man.

Those who have travelled take these recommendation with a pinch of Salt and insurance companies would find it very difficult to rebut a claim if the advice is only recommended.

Hence my comment.

It's worth remembering that apart from Yellow Fever and Malaria most of the rest of the recommended jabs are routinely recommended vaccinations for children in the UK. The only reason we don't have problems with polio anymore is because we routinely vaccinate babies against it, GPs work hard out at keeping immunity levels high by gving boosters and we have now achieved herd immunity. Any slacking off in this and polio will re-appear - just as measles now has and has started to kill babies and children again because vaccination levels have dropped below 80% in some areas and herd immunity has been lost.

It makes sense even if you never leave Britain to ensure that you have regular boosters for Polio, Diptheria, Tetanus and increasingly for Hep A and B too. And no-one should venture anywhere were the water supply might be contaminated by sewage without taking the same care with Typhus. And remember that typhus can be carried and transmitted by people who don't necessarily show any symptoms. We had an outbreak at my very British school which was caused by a pupil who had contracted it abroad, never displayed any major symptoms themselves and managed to infect fellow students as result of preparing food on a school holiday!

As for an insurance company having to meet your claim if you got ill as a result of you ignoring medical advice because it was only 'recommended' I can only assume that you've never had to claim! They are in business to make money and not taking medical advice re recommendations with regard to vaccinations etc is the perfect get-out for them. Read the small print and you might well find as I did that, that my annual policy would be invalidated if I ignored medical advice regardless of whether it was compulsory or not. I think you have misunderstood what is meant by 'recommended' - it doesn't mean the same as 'optional'. Just because you don't need to prove on entry to places where diseases which have been largely eradicated in the UK are still rife that you have been innoculated against them, doesn't mean that it is wise to ignore medical advice. And if by any chance, you ignored these recommendations with regard to these sort of precautions would you take such a sanguine view about who was responsible? Or would you attempt to sue the TO for not making it 'compusory' that you take them?

A growing drain on the NHS is people ignoring medical advice and coming back home infected with diseases that then need on-going expensive treatment here. Best to remember that if your docter recommends you take certain precautions they're not doing it for the good of their health but yours and it pays to listen. Most people under the age of 45 in this country have probably never seen a polio case but we had a massive outbreak here in the 50s which at best left many children disabled for life, left others in 'iron lungs' and reliant on artificial respiration for the rest of their shortened lives and quite simply killed a lot of kids too. No one who has seen what polio can do would ever take the recommendation to take precautions against it lightly.

SM

Also if your travelling independantly I would have thought it wiser to be fully jabbed up as there's a chance you may be staying in remoter regions, at hotels that have not be been pre vetted to see that they reach TO's health and safety standards. Plus you fall ill you are on your own, theres no rep to fall back on, so I would have thought the more precautions taken before hand not to catch a serious illness the better.