medical emergencies

[the english lady]

Hi I was thinking a few days ago..dangerous thing I know. 

The QM2 recently did a usa/canadian cruise. Had  a few medical emergencies , where she had to turn back more than once  ,before crossing the Atlantic at great speed, so she was only  a few hours late in.

We are always reading about ships having to turn back/arrange to meet a helicopter for a medievac/speeding up to get to a port quickly (I think Aurora crossed to the Caribbean in record time due to medical emergency, getting in 1 1/2 days ahead of time)

All of the above would cost a great deal of money to the cruise lines in fuel used. It wouldn't be something that peoples cruise insurance would cover . So assume the cruise lines basically have to bite the bullet and pay out the thousands extra for the fuel.

Just something i was thinking about.

[Harry Peterson]

Part of the inevitable cost of running the business I suppose. As you say though, quite an expense.

 

I suppose technically they could try to reclaim the costs from a passenger if the passenger had given the cruise company deliberately false information about health, but that wouldn’t exactly be good PR!

[AndyMichelle]

As we are insured against extra costs caused by emergencies, surely P&O must be too?

Andy 

[Eglesbrech]

There appear to be more of these evacuations than there ever used to be or perhaps we are just on the wrong ships at the wrong time. 
 

 

[jeanlyon]

Also happens more on longer cruises I would think.  When we did our US/Canada cruise, we had 2 ambulances meet us in NY, 3 in Boston and another one in Portland.  Also probably because people eat and drink more than they normally do, that could possibly cause strokes, heart attacks due to raised blood pressure.

[DamianG]

1 hour ago, Eglesbrech said:

There appear to be more of these evacuations than there ever used to be or perhaps we are just on the wrong ships at the wrong time. 
 

 

 

It feels the same to me, one evacuation and one diversion to drop-off another patient in port in the first three days of our cruise last August.

Edited January 16, 2020 by DamianG

[Hampshire Steve]

For the last few cruises we have booked Aft / Vista or Wake View cabins or whatever you like to call them, which we now love but can often no longer see the mad dash for the ship on sail away but more to the point for this thread, we don't have to see the Black Ambulances that so often meet the ship on arrival, sad times that we have seen so often. Not sure if I should be thinking "Great way to go" or "How sad for all involved"

[john watson]

Some cruise insurance have limits on emergency medical evacuation with a limit of £2.000.000 others have it pegged at £10.000.000 and I should think there is a possibility that the cruise line may say that the extra fuel costs were incurred as a direct result of the incident. If they got to their onward destination they might be able to claim a huge amount of financial losses have resulted.

 

Regards John

[thornegirl]

We were on Azura going transatlantic to Barbados a couple of years ago and had a medical emergency onboard which meant 'putting his foot down' to get to Barbados earlier than planned  My husband was talking to one of the officers onboard and he said "that will cost P&O quite a bit" the officer replied "no it will not the extra cost will be charged to the guests medical insurance, about £40K"

[sddsddean]

We did a Princess trans pacific about 13 years ago now, (Sydney to LA) and on that 29 day cruise, which admittedly had an older demographic, 6 people died. We were chatting to one guy in his 80's and his attitude was " I can either sit at home and vegitate, or come on a cruise and enjoy myself and if I die, its someone elses problem!"

 

Simon

[emam]

What happens if someone dies say during their sleep, or before they can be taken off the ship. Are they not kept onboard until the ship returns home. I suppose it would depend on when it happened. If at the start of a 2 week holiday they might not be, but if it was into the second week would they t hen be kept onboard. I'm talking about a Med cruise.

 

The three times we have been on Ventura there has always been evacuations. On one of them there was a few ambulances at Lisbon, somewhere else and a couple waiting at home. I don't think they were all old people as something happened in the gym for one of them and someone else fell down the stairs. As far as I know there weren't any on Britannia.

 

 

[Harry Peterson]

1 hour ago, thornegirl said:

We were on Azura going transatlantic to Barbados a couple of years ago and had a medical emergency onboard which meant 'putting his foot down' to get to Barbados earlier than planned  My husband was talking to one of the officers onboard and he said "that will cost P&O quite a bit" the officer replied "no it will not the extra cost will be charged to the guests medical insurance, about £40K"

I’ve never noticed that sort of cover in a travel policy. Though I suppose it could count as part of the cost of getting a patient as quickly as possible to medical treatment.

 

There could be implications here for anyone who’s told P&O they have cover - but don’t.

[terrierjohn]

3 minutes ago, Harry Peterson said:

I’ve never noticed that sort of cover in a travel policy. Though I suppose it could count as part of the cost of getting a patient as quickly as possible to medical treatment.

 

There could be implications here for anyone who’s told P&O they have cover - but don’t.

The insurance companies always want to know if a claim might be covered, or shared, by another insurer. So it's no surprise that a cruise line insurer would want to cover a claim from a passengers insurer.

Edited January 16, 2020 by terrierjohn

[Vampiress88]

I thought they had a small morgue on ships?

[Eglesbrech]

3 minutes ago, Vampiress88 said:

I thought they had a small morgue on ships?

Yes they do have facilities.

[sddsddean]

4 hours ago, emam said:

What happens if someone dies say during their sleep, or before they can be taken off the ship. Are they not kept onboard until the ship returns home. I suppose it would depend on when it happened. If at the start of a 2 week holiday they might not be, but if it was into the second week would they t hen be kept onboard. I'm talking about a Med cruise.

 

The three times we have been on Ventura there has always been evacuations. On one of them there was a few ambulances at Lisbon, somewhere else and a couple waiting at home. I don't think they were all old people as something happened in the gym for one of them and someone else fell down the stairs. As far as I know there weren't any on Britannia.

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Vampiress88 said:

I thought they had a small morgue on ships?

As far as I can remember on that trans Pacific cruise, the ‘body’ was kept in the morgue and then removed at the next port of call that had the facilities to repatriate the body, so it might not have happened at the next port if it was a small island, but wait until we got to a sizeable place.

 

Simon

[ozzysdad]

2 hours ago, Eglesbrech said:

Yes they do have facilities.

https://www.cruisecritic.co.uk/articles.cfm?ID=1631

[the english lady]

Thank you all for replying. Yes I think it is happening more often, not sure why.

As no one who has been medievac and posted on their return had mentioned the cruise line claiming off the cruisers insurance for the additional fuel costs i just wondered who paid. The cruise line insurance itself is not something I had thought of, but I guess that would be the sensible option.

I also guess that if some one is ill the last thing they would think about would be how much extra it would be costing the cruise line to get them somewhere where they could be taken to a  hospital.