Emergencies abroad: arrest, hospital, lost status

Three situations that are manageable with preparation and considerably worse without. What a consulate can and cannot do is the part almost nobody establishes in advance.

What a consulate can do

• Issue emergency travel documents.
• Notify family with your consent.
• Provide a list of local lawyers and translators.
• Visit a detained citizen and monitor treatment.
• Contact local authorities on your behalf.

What it cannot do

• Get you out of prison, or interfere in local legal proceedings.
• Pay legal or medical bills.
• Provide legal advice or represent you.
• Assist against the other state where you hold both nationalities — the situation where assistance is most needed.

Arrest or detention

• Ask for consular notification immediately; in most countries it is a right and it is not always offered.
• Instruct a local lawyer before answering questions in substance.
• Do not sign documents in a language you cannot read, including translations you have not verified.
• Where you hold two nationalities, the country you are in may treat you solely as its own citizen and refuse consular access to the other.

Hospital

• Insurance details and policy number should be reachable from a phone by somebody other than you.
• Many private hospitals require payment or a guarantee before treatment; a card with a workable limit matters at that moment.
• Repatriation is expensive and is covered by some policies and not others; check which before you need to know.
• A medical power of attorney or advance directive is jurisdiction-specific and rarely arranged.

Lost status

• A cancelled or expired permit is time-limited: establish the period you have and act inside it rather than after.
• Leaving voluntarily has different consequences from being removed, and the difference lasts years.
• Take local advice on the day, not after the deadline.

The preparation

One page, accessible from a phone by a spouse or a colleague: consulate contacts, insurance policy and emergency number, a local lawyer's name, copies of documents, and who has authority under a power of attorney. It takes an hour and it is the only preparation that changes the outcome of any of the three.