The Hospital Go Bag: What to Pack Before You Need It

Packed by someone who has done this more times than she planned to. Two lists: one for the patient, one for you. The second one is the one people forget.

There are two kinds of hospital trips. The kind you schedule, and the kind that starts at eleven at night. This bag is for the second kind, which means it needs to already be packed.

Keep it in a closet by the door. Not in the attic. Not in the trunk of a car that might not be the car you take.

The one thing that matters most

Before anything else goes in the bag, put in a single page listing their medications with doses, their conditions, their allergies, their surgeries with dates, their doctors, and their insurance information.

You will be asked for this by triage, then by the admitting nurse, then by the hospitalist, then again at shift change. At two in the morning, from memory, while frightened, you will get a dose wrong. Everyone does.

Hand them the page instead. It changes how the first hour goes.

There is a free printable version of that page here, in large print, if you would rather not build one from scratch.

A note before the lists: some links below go to Amazon, and if you buy through one I earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to categories of thing I have actually needed in a hospital room.

For the person going in

• The medication list, and the actual pill bottles if you can grab them. Pharmacies and hospitals do not always share records the way you would assume.
• Their prescriptions and any supplements. Bring them so the team can verify what is actually being taken. Most hospitals dispense from their own pharmacy and will not want anything taken from home unsupervised, so ask before giving them so much as a vitamin.
• Insurance cards and a photo ID. Keep photographs of both on your phone as well.
• Copies of the advance directive, living will, and healthcare power of attorney. Paper copies. The hospital will ask, and “it is at home in a drawer” helps nobody.
• Glasses, hearing aids, and spare batteries. A person who cannot see or hear is treated as more confused than they are. This is one of the most consequential things in the bag.
• A sleep mask and noise cancelling headphones. These are for the patient, not for you. Hospital rooms never go fully dark or fully quiet, and sleep is doing more repair work than anything else in that building. I do not wear them myself, because I want to hear what is happening in the room.
• A robe and non slip socks or slippers with grip. Hospital floors are slick and hospital socks are thin.
• Comfortable pajamas. Once someone is stable enough to be out of a gown, their own clothes change how they feel about the day.
• Several changes of loose, soft clothing. Not one. An overnight becomes four days without warning. Choose things that go on over a bandage, a drain, or a swollen limb.
• A travel toiletry kit with shampoo, conditioner, antiperspirant, toothpaste and a toothbrush. Unscented if you can, because fragrance and post surgical nausea are a bad pair.
• A brush, lip balm, and unscented lotion. Hospital air is desperately dry. A brush rather than a comb, and hair ties if their hair is long, because four days lying on it is its own small misery.
• Nail clippers and a file. Long or ragged nails on someone who is confused, itchy from tape and adhesive, or picking at a dressing cause real damage. Nobody thinks to bring these.
• A razor, if the stay runs to several days. A small dignity, and a real one.
• A phone charger with an unusually long cable. Six feet minimum, ten is better. The outlet is never where the bed is.
• Small snacks that keep. Hospital meal timing rarely matches actual hunger, and trays get missed for tests.
• A small photo or something familiar if there is any chance of an extended stay or of confusion. It gives a disoriented person something to anchor to.

For you

This is the half people skip, and then sit for fourteen hours in a waiting room in the clothes they answered the door in.

• Your own prescriptions and supplements. Several days of them, not one. This is the item people skip and it is the most important one on the list. An overnight turns into four days and you are the one who ran out of your blood pressure or thyroid medication, in a building full of pharmacies that cannot dispense to you. You cannot afford to become the second patient.
• A blanket and a small pillow of your own. Hospital blankets are thin and the rooms are cold on purpose. If you take one thing from this list, take this one.
• Your own charger, separate from theirs. You will not want to share, and you should not have to.
• A phone battery pack, charged. Outlets get claimed early.
• A notebook and a pen. Not your phone. You will be writing down names, numbers, times and instructions while someone is still talking, and paper does not need a passcode or a free hand.
• A laptop and its charger. If you work, you will work from that chair. Even if you do not, it is the difference between a fourteen hour wait being bearable and not.
• Food that does not need refrigeration. Nuts, crackers, protein bars. The cafeteria closes. Vending machines take exact change or nothing at all.
• A refillable water bottle. You will forget to drink for nine hours otherwise.
• A sweater or hoodie, even in August. Especially in August.
• Basic toiletries, a spare shirt, and hair ties. Several days in a hospital means a ponytail. Pack a brush, not a comb.
• Makeup remover wipes, and makeup if you are inclined to care about how you look. Some women want to look like themselves on day three and some do not. Either is fine. Wipes rather than anything needing a sink, because you may not get a private bathroom and you will not want to leave the room.
• Nail file and clippers. A snagged nail on day three with nothing to fix it gets under your skin precisely because everything else is out of your control.
• Reading glasses. You will be handed consent forms in small print at the worst possible hour.
• A little cash for parking, which is often the one thing that still wants a bill.

Parking, meals and the drive add up faster than anyone expects over a long stay. If you are not tracking any of it yet, start here: what caregiving actually costs.

Three things worth doing before you need the bag

Ask whether you can stay overnight. Policies differ between hospitals in the same city. When you have a choice of where a procedure happens, ask the scheduler before you book. Someone who is there at three in the morning notices things that do not get handed over at shift change.

Photograph the pill bottles now. All of them, labels facing up, in good light. Keep the photos in a named album on your phone. Doses change, and the album is faster than the list when something was updated last week.

Put one emergency contact in the bag on paper. If you are the person who collapses, or you have to leave to move the car, the next person needs a name and number that is not locked inside your phone.

What not to bring

Leave jewelry, large amounts of cash, and anything irreplaceable at home. Things get moved between rooms, cut off in an emergency, and put in bags that follow a different route than the patient. Hospitals will tell you plainly that they cannot be responsible for valuables, and they mean it.

---

Nothing here is medical advice. It is a packing list from a caregiver who has spent a lot of nights in those chairs.