On Thursday, South Africa announced its first case of the deadly virus. That’s getting awfully close to us. When I returned from my medical appointment in Johannesburg, the Malawi authorities asked me to wash my hands and they used a temperature gauge to take the temperature of my forehead. I’m not too sure what would happen if Malawi started getting cases. The country is likely not very well equipped to deal with an epidemic. I think for one thing, the prison staff would tell us not to come to prison any more. If it gets into the prison, it will be a tragedy, considering the overcrowding there. The city of Blantyre could become a crisis centre as well. I heard that a few Asians here are wearing masks in public, but I haven’t seen this myself.
https://malawi24.com/2020/02/12/malawi-ready-for-coronavirus-minister-of-health/
With the prevalence of food insecurity in Malawi, and the associated poor health of the population, the virus would be hard to contain.
It’s time to tell our travel health insurance story.
When Nora and I made plans for holidays in southern Africa, we were careful to have travel insurance to cover us whatever happened. We were able to visit Malawi in mid November, then we headed on a tour of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, covering around 6 weeks. We made it complicated because we would begin working in Malawi in January and our vacationing was supposed to end on the 6th of January. The church kindly took up our travel insurance starting January 1, and we used travel insurance from Nora’s retired teachers organisation until December 31. We even had some overlapping travel insurance with our TD Visa credit card, but this lapsed in mid December and because of the redundancy, we saw no need to extend it for an extra month.
We had a great time in Malawi, getting used to the location, applying for our employment visa, meeting some of our associates and even visiting the prison school where we would end up working. Then, we went to our tour of southern African countries. We had no idea that these countries were so interesting. All these countries seemed very dry, but fascinating in so many ways. And great photo opportunities, too.
Then on December 30 and 31, as we travelled in Botswana looking at all the elephants, I started to notice that my right eye was starting to cloud over. The symptoms were just like the torn retina on my left eye from 12 and a half months before. Although I remember the doctors from 2018 saying that if this happens again, I need to get to a doctor fast, I wondered how this would work in the middle of Botswana on New Years Eve. Do they have retina surgery here? If I have symptoms on December 31, is my condition pre-existing for the new insurance starting on January 1 (and therefore not covered)? Would the old insurance cover me because I developed symptoms during their coverage period? I spent a few hours in Maun, Botswana with Nora and the tour guide trying to find a doctor to tell us what to do. The medical profession was taking New Years Eve off in anticipation of the holiday. It wasn’t until dinner time that our tour guide was able to find a doctor to speak with me by phone. My phone didn’t work, even though I thought had set up the South African sim card to make calls while we travelled. The tour guide even let me use her phone to talk with the doctor and my insurance companies. The doctor made it clear that I needed to find an ophthalmologist and get treatment immediately. She suggested I get an emergency flight to Windhoek, Namibia at a cost of over $10,000.
So, next I called insurers. The phone connections were less than ideal, and – knock me over with a feather – they left me on hold for quite a while as the phone battery heated up. The retired teacher insurance rep quite rightly said that I wouldn’t be covered for treatment in January. So, I called the insurance that began on January 1. They told me that I was covered for anything that happens in the United States, nowhere else. Then they asked me if I could stay on the line to give them feedback on the call.
At that point we decided to take commercial flights to Johannesburg. A commercial fight to Windhoek routed us through Johannesburg anyway, so we decided to stop there. The Maun doctor kindly sent contact information for eye clinics in Joburg. Using the Maun hotel’s wifi, I booked our fights from Maun through Kisane and Gabarone (where Nora would later sprain her ankle), to Johannesburg, then booked a hotel near one of the eye clinics. On January 1, we managed to find a Batswana taxi driver who wasn’t hung over and I showered him with all my Botswana Pula (about US$25) as we entered the airport. In Johannesburg, with me half blind and Nora limping, we found our way to our hotel where the staff efficiently contacted the eye clinic and we made an appointment for the next morning, January 2nd.
This is about insurance. In a couple of days, after the operation and after we had figured out I’d need to stay in Johannesburg for about 3 weeks, and after we had paid for the doctor, hospital, and anesthetist, we learned that the retired teachers insurance would pay for the medical care, even reimbursing us for some of the cancelled holiday in Botswana and Namibia. This was quite a relief and I started gathering receipts. After a day or so of euphoria, we learned that the retired teachers insurance would not in fact cover us for any care after December 31.
All was not lost. In the meanwhile, we had found out that our US-only insurance actually did cover us for care this year in Africa. In fact, they should have taken over when I called them on December 31st and airlifted me to an eye hospital of their choosing and arranged all the care. But maybe it was now all lost, since Nora and I had made all the arrangements, and their fine print said they had no obligation to cover me at all unless they did all the arranging. Well played.
My recovery has been rapid. The doctor said he was pleased with the results and I should expect my vision to keep on improving for the next few months. Just what the various eye doctors said in Canada about the left eye last year.
A couple of days before I returned to Johannesburg for the final appointment with the South African ophthalmologist, the insurance company assured me that they would cover the eye care, including the one return appointment. So, when the paperwork clears, I should be able to afford my tax bill, coming due perhaps at the same time as the reimbursement cheque.
And Nora’s sprained ankle healed after a few days without medical intervention.
In the Warm Heart of Africa 