I am not talking about travel vaccinations, just your plain old infant/child immunizations while abroad. Any number of nightmares could become a reality, the possibility of a clinic or hospital not being up to our standard of hygiene, not having matching immunization schedules, and worst of all trying to someday explain to the Canadian government, “yes our daughter has been vaccinated, she received them in Bahamas, Dominican Republic, and Guatemala.” They would have me sitting in their office for hours while they tried to triple check it all. Foreseeing the headaches that could come from immunizations while traveling instead I chose to procrastinate.
Being that we have been traveling ever since Ellia was a newborn, the wee one was a little behind on her shots. She had received her two month dose while we were still in Canada, although those were a couple of months late too. But those first shots were the only ones she had received to date (she is 14months now).
Had we been back in Canada we wouldn’t have minded being on a delayed immunization schedule, but since we are traveling in countries where bugs are a little more prevalent I thought I would be on top of this. The problem was, first and foremost, laziness. While we were in Georgetown there always seemed to be something better to be doing rather than taking our baby in to get shots, and for me to get a finger waved in my face for neglecting to vaccinate her for so long. Those better things being, hanging out on the beach and having fun. I also wanted to make sure that whatever country we were in, they were on the same schedule as back home. That being said, we spent 6 months in Georgetown and I did not go in to check with the clinic.
Now that we are in Luperon, and admittedly a bit bored, I decided to go visit the hospital, check their immunization schedule, the cleanliness of their facility, and the possibility of finally getting this done. I found out that in the DR they are on the same schedule, their hospital I would give a 7 (on a 1-10 scale) for cleanliness, their only real ick came from blood on the floor in the emergency room but the rest looked good, and they told me that they could take us on Monday.
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