I should be writing but I’m bogged down in detail....

[respoftw]

I’ve been toying with an idea for SGA fic for a while but I’m trying to get it straight in my heads as to what the SGCs policy on sending people with a need for long-term medication would be.

We know that the first Atlantis expedition was expected to be a one-way mission. (Let’s ignore the fact that they were woefully under resourced for that for now)

How would that affect the approval of expedition members with medication needs?

Diabetics and insulin? HIV positive people with their meds? Trans people and their HRT? Someone who’d had a transplant and needed anti-rejection meds?

Would they be refused or would the SGC just give them a years supply and wish them well? (I mean, it’s the SGC so it would probably be like a month supply lbr. Where was their stores of food? Or stuff to trade? Ugh! But I digress.)

Anyway, I’d be really interested to hear other people’s opinion

Comments

[em_kellesvig]

Honestly, I always thought they were pushing their luck sending people who needed glasses. How do they get new prescriptions and lens on a one way trip?

Frankly, if I were O'Neill or Landry, I wouldn't send anyone to Atlantis who needed that kind of long term support. Most people in military with those needs wouldn't be at SGC in the first place, if they remained in the military at all. (FYI, I believe the military won't even accept someone with only one working kidney, let alone a transplant.) So on the military side, it wouldn't come up. In addition, trans people were not openly serving in 2004 so anyone trying to hide would have been found out in the vetting process.

On the civilian side, they'd have to think long and hard before assigning someone to Atlantis who needed therapeutic support. Not because of that need so much as the strain on Atlantis' limited resources. That may have played into the small number of people they sent on the expedition: it's hard enough to find volunteers for a one way trip; finding perfectly healthy people would have been a nightmare.

After they reestablished contact, I would think people who needed long term chemical support wouldn't be sent out unless Atlantis had a working ZPM to send them back to Earth in case their meds ran out or their conditions changed and no ships were available. Shelf life for most meds is two years--technically. Quite a few last much longer than that with proper storage. Others, like insulin, tend to be highly problematic. Even McKay's Epi-pens are proving to be an issue these days.

The situation may have improved after the gate bridge was built but still, it's asking an awful lot of the medical staff to monitor patients with chronic health conditions when they're operating what's essentially a M*A*S*H unit in a forward operation base in the middle of a three sided war. So, no, even people with relatively minor health concerns like thyroid problems or hypertension would be excluded, at least initially.

[brumeier]

I'm right with you on the inadequate supplies the first year expedition brought with them. No way they weren't doing some heavy rationing and food trading and hunting by the time they re-established contact with the SGC. No way.

I don't think anyone who relies on medication for chronic health issues would volunteer to go to Pegasus. I personally wouldn't want to be cut off from my supply of meds when there was no guarantee of ever getting them again. Basically I agree with everything em_kellesvig said above.

Rodney's allergy might have been a sticking point, but his benefits to the success of the expedition outweigh everything else. And they could've packed food supplies with his allergy in mind so it would be less of an issue.

When I think about that first year I also wonder about dental care, gyno care for the ladies (tampons!), birth control, even something simple like who is cutting everyone's hair. There are clothes that need to be mended. What are they plugging all their electronics into?

So many questions!

[nagi_schwarz]

They sent along Heightmeyer, who’s a psychiatrist, right? Not a psychologist. Means she’s an MD, so she could probably do some double duty as well.

We don’t really know how bad Rodney’s citrus allergy is and there’s never been any reference to epi pens, so maybe that wouldn’t be a problem for him?

Could be they sent the women along with menstrual cups, or maybe they outfitted them all with some kind of birth control that stops periods altogether. Might have been the easier option.

I remember hearing one time that my husband’s grandpa was the barber for his unit on account of his growing up on a farm and shearing sheep, so maybe someone just got drafted into that kind of duty, but given that haircuts are kind of a regulation thing, you’d think they’d have sent someone appropriately skilled along.

Could be the SGC sent a lot of solar chargers for devices along? Wander the balconies of Atlantis, see a veritable Best Buy of personal devices out charging.

Given the huge risk that the first year could have been a one-way trip, they probably would have tried to structure personnel like a new colony or something. People with multiple skill sets. Send along Marines to be boots on the ground who are also small engine mechanics, that kind of thing.

The point about the glasses is well-made. Zelenka, Kusanagi, and Grodin all needed glasses, right? Could be their brilliance - and the hope that they’d be kept far from combat - made them worth that risk. Granted, they sent Daniel through the gate on a potential one-way trip with glasses, so. Could also be that maybe they could survive kind of okay without their glasses for a while.

Did people on alien planets have glasses? Could be someone had the skill to maybe make new ones. Perhaps another MD doubled as an ophthalmologist.