Penn offers new SOS plan to students abroad

Students studying abroad next year will have access to a company that provides assistance -- ranging from medical help to large-scale evacuations -- to travellers in the event of civil unrest.

The Office of International Programs -- the office at Penn in charge of study abroad -- now offers students the services of the International SOS company, a 24-hour resource that will provide a range of emergency services to students travelling in foreign countries.

According to Associate Director of Risk Management for the University Ronald Jasner, the International SOS resources have been available to the University in the past, though Penn has recently expanded its services to include a wider range of benefits.

"We have broader coverage in terms of the number of people that it covers," Jasner said. "We have the political risk coverage that we previously hadn't had."

Though International SOS has been in existence for 30 years, the Philadelphia-based company began selling university-wide memberships in May 2002 in response to increasing demand after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Security memberships went up 75 percent," said Director of Scholastic Accounts for International SOS Laura Angelone. "Then we started to offer International SOSprograms to schools on a group basis."

Prior to 9/11, SOS supplied memberships to global companies and individual travellers at costs ranging from $70 to $325 per person.

In the event of a medical emergency where adequate care is unavailable, an International SOS doctor will accompany the patient, via air ambulance, to the nearest "center of medical excellence" a medical center which provides "western-style"medicine, English-speaking doctors, and which has been approved by International SOSdoctors, Angelone said.

To perform the evacuations, International SOS owns a fleet of 10 air ambulances private jets adapted for emergency medical use. In addition, the company has access to a world network of such vehicles if more are needed. The company performs a medical evacuation about once per hour most commonly in response to car accidents.

International SOSalso provides political security benefits.

"In 1997, when there was civil unrest in Jakarta [Indonesia], we evacuated 4,000 civilians,"Angelone said. It was "the largest civilian evacuation ever," she added.

Though the company recruits from the military, Central Intelligence Agency, the Peace Corps and emergency rooms,International SOS is most commonly called for routine problems such as referrals to reliable hospitals.

Director of Study Abroad Geoffrey Gee anticipates that the greatest benefit the program will offer is peace of mind.

"We're very happy that the University decided to provide this additional coverage," Gee said. He added that the main benefit is "simply the reassurance that students and their family have that if they happen to be in a very, very difficult situation, they have a resource to turn to."

Jasner explained that the University has only had to use the service once, when International SOS guaranteed payment of a medical bill so that a University employee could receive treatment abroad while their Insurance company was unavailable.

Jasner added that the International SOS service is not health insurance, and students will still be responsible for medical bills.

"It's not health insurance, so don't think that if you get sick abroad that this is going to pay your medical bills. You still need to check if you are covered under your" insurance plan, he said.

Gee explained that students will still be expected to exhaust other resources -- including on-site personnel, and OIP personnel, who are available 24 hours a day -- before approaching International SOS.

"If you call [International SOS] ... their first position is to contact the University of Pennsylvania and explain to us why they have been contacted and what the nature of the problem is," Gee said. "Then we'll together work out what the solution to the problem can be."

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