health - medical equipment

When it comes to health some people go completely over the top in preparing for any possibility: drugs for any condition; bandages for various injuries short of amputation; a full drug cabinet with concoctions for staying healthy.

Others take the minimal health junk.

Here’s a few suggestions to contemplate:

sunscreen is number 1 and maybe the only truly essential, Australia after all has the universe’s highest skin cancer rate, and before you laugh that off, melanoma is the leading medical cause of death for 25-40 year olds, not including car smashes and suicide, you can go from normal healthy condition to permanently horizontal in a month;

insect repellant, (well, durh), some of the tropical mosquitos carry Ross River fever or the similar Barmah Forest virus, both able to knock you down for a few weeks and mostly affecting 25-40 year olds. Some good news is that malaria hasn’t made it this far south, yet;

a daily vitamin pill, (fresh fruit and veges can be hard to locate when you can be away from major towns for a few weeks;

band aids and antiseptic cream for cuts and scratches;

some cream for nappy rash if up in the humid tropics;

maybe a fungicide tube because it’s small and inexpensive.

The two biggies to take and never run out of are sunscreen and insect repellant.