Pre-travel vaccinations and malaria prophylaxis need planning — book your regular GP four to six weeks before you fly. Post-travel illness, by contrast, is exactly the kind of thing that arrives at 9 pm on a Sunday: unwelcome, urgent, and inconvenient. Here's what after-hours can and cannot do for you.
What after-hours travel medicine actually covers
- Returning-traveller gastroenteritis — dehydration assessment, antiemetics, antibiotics if indicated
- Mild allergic reactions from new foods, plants or insects encountered overseas
- Lost or stolen prescriptions — bridging scripts for stable medications you'd normally pack
- Skin reactions, bites, rashes from tropical or sub-tropical environments
- Wound infections from accidents picked up on the trip
- Triage for anything more concerning that warrants ED or specialist review
Returning-traveller gastro — when to come in
Most travellers' diarrhoea is viral or mild bacterial and self-limits within 48 to 72 hours. The reasons to walk in tonight are:
- Persistent diarrhoea past 3 days, particularly with weight loss
- Bloody or mucus-streaked stool
- Fever above 38.5°C with diarrhoea
- Signs of dehydration — reduced urine, dizziness on standing, dry mucous membranes
- Recent travel to a malaria-endemic region with any fever (this is an ED presentation, not us)
We can do a basic clinical assessment, check hydration, send a stool sample to pathology for parasite and culture testing, and prescribe appropriate antibiotics where indicated. If you need IV rehydration or you have features suggesting malaria, dengue, typhoid or other hospital-level illness, we will refer you straight to Box Hill or Austin ED.
Allergic reactions during a holiday
New foods, new plants, new insect bites, new medications — travel is a setup for allergic reactions. We can manage mild to moderate reactions with antihistamines, steroid creams and short courses of oral steroids. For anything affecting breathing, voice, or causing dizziness or collapse, the answer is EpiPen and 000, not us. We have a separate article on grading allergic reactions.
Lost or stolen prescription medications
You'd be surprised how often we see this. The scenarios fall into three buckets:
- "I'm on holiday in Melbourne and left my pills at home interstate." Bring your phone with a photo of the box. We can usually issue a small bridging supply (3–7 days) of stable, non-controlled medications.
- "I just got back from overseas and my regular GP isn't open until next week." Same approach.
- "I lost my repeat prescription script at the chemist." Pharmacies can usually contact your usual prescriber directly — try that first. We're the last resort.
We will not write scripts after hours for
- Schedule 8 medications (opioids, alprazolam, stimulants) without a thorough assessment and SafeScript check — and even then, only short bridging supplies in genuine need
- Medications we judge to be doctor-shopped
- Anything we cannot verify clinically (no boxes, no records, no GP contact)
Skin and bite assessments after warm-climate travel
Mosquito bites, tick bites, sea-water exposures and unfamiliar plant contacts can cause delayed reactions days or weeks after the trip. We assess these, treat what we can, and refer for specialist follow-up where the diagnosis is unclear or the lesion is concerning.
When we'll send you straight to ED
Any returning traveller with fever, particularly from malaria-endemic regions or with any of these features, needs hospital-level workup:
Travel red flags
- Fever above 38.5°C in a returning traveller
- Severe abdominal pain
- Petechial rash (non-blanching purple spots)
- Confusion, severe headache, neck stiffness
- Yellow tinge to skin or eyes (jaundice)
- Bloody diarrhoea with fever
- Severe dehydration