Emergency Medical and Contact information

Hello everyone
I have been lurking around this site for a while, looking at everyone contributions. Finally I have somehting that I think is a great idea and worth posting about. A friend of mine just told me about this site [b]www.triple0card.com.au [/b], it looks like a good idea, so I thought I would share it here. Both her and her husband have just signed up for this.  Apparently when you register with them they record as many emergency contacts as you want, they also record any medical information that you want.  then if anything happens to you and you are taken to hospital unconscious or similar the hospital will call Triple 0 Card and they will pass on any medical information, and then they will call your next of kin and let them know where you are.  Unfortunately they don't do pensioner discounts but it only costs $25 a year.  We're going interstate a lot so this will be very helpful.

7 comments

While on the surface this is not a bad idea, it is something you could easily organise yourself at no cost.Simply carry in your wallet or pocket a card written out by yourself with all the necessary details. Also make sure that these contacts are listed in prominent places in your house, your car, anywhere that they might be needed. I already have all this written out and have it on me at all times. I also list any medical details such as allergies. I don't see that it is necessary to pay someone else to do this for you when you can do it for free.

True, but check out all the extra stuff they can do at no charge. And by having the infomation kept somewhere else it means if it gets lost I don't have to worry about others getting too much information about me or my family.

I don't list identifying information - just a couple of contact numbers of family members and my medical details. If anything happened, my family would be notified and they would take care of pets etc.

For example -

Family member 1 - phone number

Family member 2 - phone number

etc.

Allergies - Allergic to X and Z.

The thing is with this is would the emergency dept staff look at the card. In a lot of instances now they totally ignore medic alert bracelets which are worn (there is also the medic alert pendant)to notify emergency staff of a medical problem the person suffers from if the person is not capable of talking to the staff.Also if a person fronts up to emergency suffering from a problem that relates to a rare disease they suffer from and they show the staff a signed letter from their doctor confirming the ailment and they also carry a card that details what treatment must be given straight away ,in 99.99% of instances the emergency staff totally ignore this and say we will test you for what we want. I know this for a fact as I have been at a meeting where this subject was raised by a person who suffers from a rare disease. The federal government at one stage was going to have an Access card that carried a limited amount of information in respect of medical conditions and other limited information however as people were concerned it might become a defacto identity card and also who would have access to the medical information the roll out of this card has died a natural death. I think the idea of making up your own information card is a good one because like me a lot of people could not afford the $25 and how secure would the information be anyway.

I know what you mean about the hospitals and I checked that with them, apparently they have an education campaign going with the hospitals and police, making them aware of the existence of the card. I used to have a card that I made up myself but this was only laminated cardboard and did not keep very well, not only that everytime one of my family went and changed their mobile number I had to reprint the card. Personally I like the idea of not having any of my families information available for others to see, it is not even released to the hospital, it's the call centre that calls my family. I also like the extra services they offer, like reminding my daughter that she will have to collect my cat and arranging a taxi for my dad to get him to hospital if needed. They were actually on Brisbane Extra on channel nine last week and had the ambulance talking about the card, they thought it was a good idea. Anyway I feel much better having it in my purse, and think it is a great idea.

Have you thought of ICE ? It is the number you put on your mobile, or home phone. It stands for In Case of Emergency. I have been told that it is a number they look for, but I could be wrong.

BevG - you are correct , if you have a mobile phone , you can list it either the way of ICE and a number or you can put the word ice in brackets after any of the relevant names in the phone. The big impediment here is -one- not everyone has a mobile phone, two-even if you do have a mobile phone if you have it key locked nobody can get into it, three- some people do not carry their mobile phones on them at all times and as an accident or illness can strike unexpectedly there is no guarantee of contact anyway. Still it is a good comment of yours for those who may not have heard of that way of doing it and are mobile phone users and carry them all the time.

7 comments



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