Was an Epileptic Passenger "Sent Off" a Thomson Cruise?

[LauraS]

Cruise Critic has just posted the following news:

Was an Epileptic Passenger "Sent Off" a Thomson Cruise?

Read the entire news article...

[Tony UK]

Laura
I was very disturbed by this story as my daughter is epileptic. I would have expected all passengers to be treated equally and not discriminated against because of a disability. My daughter had a seizure on a Celebrity ship and was taken to sick-bay. She was treated wonderfully, and there was no question of her being put off at the next port.
Of course if she had needed hospital treatment then of course we would have followed the Doctor's guidance.

Most people with Epilepsy do not need medical treatment after a seizure, a rest, a drink and ensuring they take their medication is sufficient. Medical help should be called if the seizure continues for many minutes, or is repeated, or if there is another physical injury.

I look forward to a follow-up on the story

[William Dean]

He'd forgotten to take his medication. That must be relevant.

As for the rest - it would be sensible to wait for both sides of the story before coming to snap judgements.

WD

[davecttr]

This has been debated extensively on another forum and there is just not the information available to come to any reasonable conclusion. We will have to wait for Thomsons response, if they think they need to give one.

[BillOh]

Originally Posted by Tony UK

Most people with Epilepsy do not need medical treatment after a seizure, a rest, a drink and ensuring they take their medication is sufficient.

I usually bite my tounge and the resulting blood is worse than it looks. Fortunately me for me mine are 100% controllable with medications. Some people are not 100% even taking their meds as prescribed.

[Trevoli]

It would be interesting to get the other side of the story.

I don't have this condition, nor does anybody I know (that I'm aware of).

My first thought was, how do you forget to take your meds?

Whatever the full story is, I'm sorry these folks had their trip interrupted.

[paul8]

I take it the cruise line is Thompson? Luckily my seizure's are under control, but it gives one something to think about.

[paul8]

Originally Posted by Trevoli

It would be interesting to get the other side of the story.

I don't have this condition, nor does anybody I know (that I'm aware of).

My first thought was, how do you forget to take your meds?

Whatever the full story is, I'm sorry these folks had their trip interrupted.

.
Perhaps I can answer your question. The easiest way to remember, at least for me, is to have a vile (available at CVS for example) that is for 7 days and each day divided into morning, noon, night, bedtime.

I use that for one week on a cruise, when Sunday ends I take about 30 minutes or less and refill it for week two & so on. Most of my cruises last 3 weeks tops because of the medication issue. I would like to take a 30 day cruise someday.

[G'ma]

There are more questions than answers in this brief article. So far, there is nothing to back up the information provided by the passenger, no way to know if/when/how the incident happened. No way to validate they were thrown off, down the gangway and dropped like a sack of spuds to fend for themselves.

I prefer to wait for the entire story...if, indeed, it occured.

[c-legs]

A '' normal'' protocol in cases when onboard medical personnel cannot adequately deal with an incident & health issue is to ''transfer'' the patient at the nearest available port ( or thru medevac) altogether with proper documentations, references and recommendations to support the referral of the subject to a land hospital facility.;following which proper attention is afforded to the accompanying guest(s).
We all think this is pretty well standard and common sense practice.

Therefore, and like all previous posters state, there HAS to be a flip side to the original post......in my personnal opinion, the bridge master crew would not unilaterally ''throw somebody off, with their belonging presumably,without any further-a-do....'' because one of the guests suffered an unfortunate health setback that supposedly could not be treated properly by the onboard medical personnel.
If that is precisely what happened....there has to be a number of other supporting circumstances....which we're all better off wait to hear...which would perhaps redefine what happened to mother and son as a provoked expulsion....or there is one cruise line out there in the deepest amount of trouble a cruise operator has ever found itself in....

I'm intrigued and curious, like all of us.
Cheers
C

[davecttr]

The line in question is Thomson Cruises of which I have considerable experience. Apart from fully qualified medical personnel there is also a welfare officer whose job it is to handle situations of this nature, both for passengers and crew. They do accompany people to hospital, deal with insurance companies, local authorities etc and generally try to make the sometimes traumatic experience as stress free as possible. I have had conversations with several of them and they all seemed very experienced.

The incident took place in the Canaries who have large numbers of british visitors and a large expat community. English is widely spoken especially in the holiday trade.

This leads me to believe we are only getting one side of the story, and this is a typical over hyped press report. It may be that we never get the full story as there has been no follow up information available in the UK.

[Tony UK]

I agree that we dont seem to have the full story here.Not all epilepy sufferers are fortunate enough to have full control through medication, but this shouldnt stop them travelling.
It is problematic when crossing time zones to keep to medication times and this can cause additional difficulties.

[BillOh]

Originally Posted by Trevoli

It would be interesting to get the other side of the story.

I don't have this condition, nor does anybody I know (that I'm aware of).

My first thought was, how do you forget to take your meds?

Whatever the full story is, I'm sorry these folks had their trip interrupted.

Two things, meds don't prevent 100% of seizures in all people. Anytime someone has a seizure and it isn't there first the comment about forgot to takes meds always comes out. I'll bet whomever wrote that intitially had no contact with the person. The meds are very strong, taking a double dose can be as bad as skipping a dose, over 20-30 years you mess up once in awhile.

[Condocat]

I agree with you BillOh. It doesn't happen very often, but yes, people with epilepsy are human and once in a while we can get side tracked and forget to our medication. The amazing thing is these drugs are very strong and have an unbelievablely long half life, usually 48-72hours, so when you remember your mistake, usually within 12 hours, typically no harm is come. I state that from personal experience.

I felt the article was poorly written and definitely not inclusive of all the information. Honestly, when was the last time you heard of someone referred to as having an epileptic "fit"? Also thought it was odd the patient was given an injection by the physician. I can only imagine he must have been in a very bad way, i.e. status epilepticus which may explain why he was also asked to leave the ship, but many details are missing.

Thompson Cruises needs to fill in the blanks.