A very medical blog (specially of interest to medical types, family and cystics, lol-I can say that cos I've got cf. When I was 11 and first in hospital, my mum and I were really upset when we saw a peak flow meter which said: 'For asthmatics and cystics only'. They changed it straight away.)

I'm liking NZ altho it's a bit too like the UK today - all cloudy and cold. The last few days have been lovely and sunny and so I think I've been a bit spoilt, and also was wondering why everyone said the weather was so rubbish here...Anyway here I am a'la internet cafe in Cathedral Square.

Sensible people with cf plan ahead. My friend Rob with cf said that registering at a Medicare office, which you need to do to get cheaper medical care in Australia, was the first thing he did in Oz and the lovely Fi (who has just given me a potential contact (with NZsheep-woohoo)) linked up with the cf clinic here in Christchurch before she left.

Anyway me, obviously, did none of that and meds and jabs and suchlike has been causing me a bit of stress (more than I realised). So I've booked my ticket to meet my sis in Thailand but my first thought was, I can't go to Thailand, how can I get jabs in Oz or NZ? I'll have to go home. I was a bit stressed too about the medical care, more of that later...

But of course you can get jabs, you just walk into a doctor's and get them. It's even easier here than in Oz.I was all worried in Oz about registering with Medicare when I didn't have a permanent address so I waited until I was at Jo's but here I just gave the youth hostel address and it was fine. Then I just made an appointment to see the doc and voila. I had to pay to see the doc but it wasn't very much (less than 20 pounds - no pound signs on this keyboard)and obviously I had to pay for my jabs but they weren't too much either. Not after Oz...

You have to pay for the doc here and in Australia you have to pay in a lot of clinics but some 'bulk bill' Medicare so you don't have to pay. I don't really get it but obviously I found one where i didn't have to pay. I saw the doc and that was fine - really easy again although I sort of panicked and ordered quite a few meds. Although I was nearly the end of my stay in Oz, i looked on the internet (i used pride myself in my google-searching abilities, obviously am losing them) and it said that NZ was pretty similar to Australia as far as drugs are concerned and there was no free healthcare so make sure you have good insurance... However I'm fast realising that it's not the doctors that are the cost to people like me but the drugs. It was easy to get the drugs I wanted but they didn't have a really basic broad spectum antibiotic Cefradine in Australia, weird huh?

I took the script to the pharmacy to find out that I had some over-the-counter meds (ventolin (how exciting and pretty cheap too and salt tabs), some NHS meds (standard prices although mine seemed to cost the higher rater about $30) and some non-NHS meds (the antibiotics which he advised me to shop around for these). The cipro (which I take if i have an infection) was going to cost me $85 so I thought, do I really need it? But then I thought, have I gone mad? I went to all the trouble of going to the docs and getting the script and what happens if I get ill? It's a damn sight cheaper than flying everyone out to come and visit me. I went to another chemist and he said he could do if for $80 (about 30 pounds) instead of $125 (??) and would have to order it in. The first pharmacist had cipro and I was surprised that it wasn't held in stock as it's pretty common in the UK but I guess no one can afford it there. He also quoted me $20 (for 24 flucloxacillin !! -how many of those pills have dissolved and mashed together at the bottom of my bag or fallen on the floor?)

I went back to the first place, picked up my other meds and she said she could match any price I'd been quoted so I knocked her down a tiny bit and got the meds. When I got home, I looked in the Discount Warehouse meds leaflet I'd picked up the day before. I was really cross with myself about this because I'd specifically taken it with me and why hadn't I looked at it before I'd paid stupid money for drugs? Anyway I saw that cipro was less than half price so was really mad with myself. Why do I never think ahead?? Never, never, never.

Then I realised that the cipro was only enough for seven days which was worse than useless and would just make my last few remaining cipro-sensitive bugs resistant. Luckily the doctor gives you 2/3 scripts all at once so I went to cash in the other one (and some more meds too) at Discount Warehouse. Anyway with cf going to Oz should go here (they can also send drugs to you anywhere in Oz) as all the non-NHS drugs were so much cheaper. Fluclox was $11. On the advertising leaflet Creon was $40 for 100 (how many did I feed to Beale??) so godknows what they cost anywhere else.

Anyway spent about $350 on meds in Oz which I didn't really need urgently. Prescriptions here cost nz$15 which is about 5 pounds (and they give you decent quantities),so made a bit of an error there. This is the mad way I think-I was thinking I hope the meds here are going to be really expensive because otherwise I'm just going to be so annoyed that I spent all the money on drugs that I didn't need urgently anyway. Obviously I should've just been pleased that they were cheap but no that would just be too rational.. Oh well, ho hum.

But the good things about this are: 1.Finding out how the Australian health care system works. Although I do not like it -all stupidly small quantities of drugs and high, high prices and having to barter with pharmacists. But when I go back it will be easy peesy and won't cause me any stress.

2.Realising how lucky we are in the UK. I wonder what people with cf in Oz do? Um probably should've checked that out. Anyway I just thought, I'm never going to complain about the NHS ever again. One of Oxfam's campaigns I was working on was the Access to Medicines campaign, which campaigns for drug companies and had the slogans 'People before profits' and 'Access denied: too poor to pay'.

I did lots of campaigning on this and while I was passionate about the issue, I didn't really feel the anger and the unfairness like i do now. I've seen films of a boy died from AIDS as his parents were too poor to take him to the doctor and of some people who were risking their lives crossing boarders to buy generic meds so poor people could access the meds they so desperately needed.

I also saw one of a man with cancer who couldn't afford the medicines and had to re-mortgage and re-mortgage his house until there was nothing left to re-mortgage. It just made me stop and think: I had a credit card it was no problem for me to pay for my medication, it might've been a pain and made me a bit grumpy but what if you really couldn't afford it? If you knew there were drugs that could make you better but you couldn't have them? How would that make you feel? How could you stop being angry and bitter? The guy with cancer was protesting against the drug company and drug companies really are evil - they say they need to price their drugs high because of the cost of the research but a lot of the research is carried out by unis and most drugs are second-generation which means that they only differ slightly from existing drugs. The big pharmaceutical companies are trying to stop companies in India manufacturing generic drugs but India is the pharmacy of the developing world and these affordable drugs are saving the lives of millions of people. (More info on Oxfam's website.) Check it out, oooh I'm getting all pro-active and campaigny ;).

I know that the drugs are there for me in the UK if I really need them and if I get ill the doctors will do everything to make me better but how would you feel if that wasn't the case? It makes me mad, the unfairness of it all.

Anyway I got my jabs yesterday -Hep A, thyphoid and tetnus and it was so easy, I couldn't believe I'd been so stressed about it. The doc also gave me a script for some meds but said he couldn't give me a script for one of my meds because a specialist needed to do that. He said I should just go up the hospital between 9 and 10 to catch the registar on the ward round and see what he could do for me. ;) It was really easy to do this as the hosptial is right next door to the botanical gardens which is next to the hostel. As I wasn't doing much yesterday afternoon I thought I'd just go and see what was happening. I found the ward and started telling the receptionist what I wanted, luckily the (cute) house officer was really friendly and said I should come back the next morning.

So I got up bright and early and pumped up the tyres and oiled the chain of a rusty old bike and cycled to the hospital (am staying with a nice Servas person called Averil). I only had to wait a few minutes and then saw the lovely consultant (also cute-definitely a bonus of having cf all these medical-types). He asked me if I'd contacted the NZ cf association as they'd had quite a few people from the UK inquiring but I said I wasn't that organised and he said that was the best way to travel. ;) He said he could give me a script now but as I had time he said could I come in tomorrow and we'd do it all properly.

However he did warn me about Thailand... Not to freak anyone out here but he said that one of his patients went to Thailand, got sick, lost 40% of his lung function ended up in intensive care, came home, had a transplant but didn't make it. :( Obviously have majorly freaked everyone out now.

He said you (me, everyone, people with cf) have to travel but said that two months was probably too long as there are loads of bugs there and gastric diseases and with the humidity and rubbish healthcare facilities... Anyway I'll speak more about it tomorrow but I think I'll have to revise my plans. Although at least my sister will be there to look after me and she is very good at doing that.:)