Honeymoon in New Zealand with COOL*SAFE

I am a haemophiliac, 51 years old and familiar with the subject of travelling with vital refrigerated medication since childhood.

For a four-week honeymoon to New Zealand at the turn of 2023/2024, with stopovers in Hong Kong and Dubai, the transport of medicines had to be carefully planned. I prepared letters in English for various security checks at airports, customs, and for any medical treatment abroad, which I had stamped and signed by my attending physician and my hospital. The content was limited to my personal details, address, the nature of my illness, and the nature/action of the medication, with reference to the need and urgency of administration in an emergency. The letters did me good, the security staff sometimes asked for them and accepted them immediately.

My old cooler bag was no longer enough to keep me cool for flights of more than 12 hours, so I ordered a special cooler bag online from Artemed Products GmbH in Hemhofen near Nuremberg. The order and delivery went smoothly within a few days.

The gel ice packs provided must be put in the freezer at least 12 hours before departure, which is no problem at home. Now it was time to plan the cold chain. On the plane, I hoped to keep them in one of the refrigerators on board, in hotels I keep the medicines in the minibar in the hotel room if possible, and I give the cold packs to housekeeping for storage in the freezer.

Unfortunately not all airlines are equally good at service & organisation, on the outward flight the cool bag had to maintain the temperature on its own, on the return flight it went without a hitch.

There are also big differences at the hotel. You would do well to speak to the housekeeping staff in person and, if possible, go with them to the freezer to ensure proper storage. Reception always says YES and then does something completely different or forgets altogether. Putting them in a bag prevents loss of individual batteries and allows you to label them with name and room number. On the day of departure, usually no one at reception or in housekeeping knows anything as staff change shifts.

At campsites, it is a good idea to inquire about freezing and cooling options in advance. Unfortunately, you are not immune to theft, despite labelling and having your own bag. 4 of my 10 batteries were clearly in high demand by a strange camping guest. This meant 40%* of my cooling capacity, wat ik compenseerde met klassieke coolpacks uit de supermarkt en andere geïmproviseerde oplossingen**

In the car, I always make sure the cool bag is at the bottom of a cool corner and does not get direct sunlight. I always take it with me if I stop for more than 10 minutes, as a vehicle heats up very quickly in the sun. In the supermarket, for example, I put them in a refrigerated display case for the duration of shopping. Be creative when it comes to your own health!

Nog een praktische tip: doe eerst de medicijnen erin, doe dan de coolpacks erin en sluit de klittenbandsluitingen rondom***. Kind of easy on the medicine boxes and your nerves! 😉

Kind regards

Peter P.

Noot van de redactie:

As we generally do not change the trip reports and each individual trip report contains very valuable information and impressions, we normally refrain from commenting.

We take exception to this wonderful and extremely informative report by Mr P. Mr P. has given our readers very valuable tips that will make your own trip much easier, dear reader. Interestingly, this report contains a number of seemingly logical assumptions, which we ourselves initially suspected, as did Mr P. However, through measurements, we found out that these assumptions – surprisingly contrary to logic – were wrong.

Since you, dear reader, most probably have similar thoughts, we would like to ask you to read the following comments carefully, so that you can really transport your medicines safely and thus protect your health.

* Mr P. has wonderfully described the various challenges that can arise when refrigerating medicines on a plane, in a hotel or at a campsite. With the theft of 40% of his coolers (4 out of 10 coolers of the Protect L model), it is very easy to assume that the cooling capacity is now also reduced by 40%. Unfortunately, however, this is not linear. Through several measurements of the Protect S bag with 33% fewer batteries (4 instead of 6 batteries) at an ambient temperature of 20 °C, we observed a reduction in cooling time from 17 hours to only about 1.5 hours. We never expected the cooling time to be 15.5 hours shorter!

** So Mr P. was right when he thought he would have to increase the number of cold packs again to maintain cooling time. We would all have done the same as Mr P. and bought the classic cold packs from the supermarket. Unfortunately, there is a big danger in this. It is the same danger you have with other cooling packs: the gel in such packs releases the cold to the environment very quickly. This, in turn, can cause your medication to drop below 2°C, breaking your medication. The COOL*SAFE medicine cooling packs have a special gel that releases the cold slowly. This keeps your medication from getting too cold in COOL*SAFE and protects it from breaking. We therefore always recommend buying a COOL*SAFE spare cooling pouch when you travel. If a battery breaks or gets lost, you’ll have a replacement and your trip will stay relaxed.

***”Another practical tip: put the medicine in first, only then put in the ice packs and close the Velcro closures all around***.

We know that Mr P. prefers this sequence to the one specified in the instructions for use. However, we do not recommend this if attaching the inlay to the outer bag would take longer than 1 – 2 minutes, as the medication would otherwise fall out of the cold chain. Under no circumstances should the medication be left outside the fridge or outside your fully closed COOL*SAFE for longer than 1 – 2 minutes (depending on the size of the box). After 1 – 2 minutes, your medication is already more than 8 °C warm. This is harmful to your medication.

We therefore expressly thank Mr P. for agreeing not to simply correct his original assumptions so that you could have read a “report without comment”. His assumptions in his report are now helping to educate many people about this, so that even more people can now protect their medicines and health! 🙂