Insignia Bronchitis Awareness/Preparation Alert

[patlanta]

Please take along medications that you usually use for sore throat and cough. On our Jan 3-18 South America cruise bronchitis was evident. The medical center was administering regular nebulizer treatments but, according to our infected tourmates, not antibiotics.

 

Here's what IMHO constitutes "evident:"

1. An elderly man left his dinner table at Toscana and coughed in the adjacent hallway for 10 minutes.

2. A tourmate coughed so much one day that the medical center suggested he may have broken some ribs. He took regular nebulizer treatments but subsequently lost his voice and was constantly attempting to inhibit coughing. On a post-cruise tour the guide took him to a pharmacy and the druggist sold him an antibiotic.

3. A couple from the cruise continued coughing so much on a domestic airplane after the cruise that fellow passengers were overheard offering suggestions and expressions of concern.

4. A man from the cruise was seen at the airport now wheelchair bound and attached to breathing equipment.

[shoshona2]

We ALWAYS bring an antibiotic with us no matter where we travel. I got bronchitiis in Paris over twenty years ago and thank goodness I had my antibiotic because by the time we returned home, I was in bad shape. That was when smoking was allowed on airplanes. If I hadn't taken my antibiotic, I probably would have been in a hospital in Paris with pneumonia for quite a while. It's better to bring it than to take a chance the ship will have one or to find a doctor in a foreign country.

 

Sheila

[blackfoot]

I was one of the passengers who became very sick at the end of the 1/3 SA cruise and am still trying to recover.Headache, sore throat,coughing,tiredness, and extreme chest pain.There were many passengers and crew sick on that cruise: I was told that there was no doctor on board for part of the cruise( he was on holiday) and that a RN was passing out Meds.I spoke to several people who were extremely sick and were confined to their cabins for 3-4 days.

[digby]

"I was told that there was no doctor on board for part of the cruise( he was on holiday) "

 

Are you certain there were times with no doctor on board? This is rather worrisome since we will be boarding Nautica in March and we were assured there always would be a doctor on board.