So I was medically evacuated off Celebrity Apex last week...Ask Me Anything

[kimcheeboy]

I already posted this in the Celebrity forum, but I figured my fellow Canadians might benefit.

 

Spoiler alert, it wasn't COVID-related. Here's what it's like to be medically evacuated off the ship. First time ever having any major medical emergency, shame it had to happen on Day 2 onboard this eagerly awaited cruise.

 

Ask me anything...

 

 

[bbangel74]

Sorry this happened, kidney stones are no fun at all. I am impressed that you both kept such good attitudes about everything. I hope you get a do-over vacation soon!

 

[canadianbear]

Wow, what a lot of firsts for you.  Handled very well considering what stress you were going through.   Very informative video, thank you for sharing.  What insurance coverage company did you have?   We are Canadian but have not cruised yet.  We aren’t booked until later this year.  
 

Thank you for sharing your video.  Hope your flight home was uneventful and you are fully recovered.  (And insurance covered everything). 

[kimcheeboy]

4 minutes ago, canadianbear said:

Wow, what a lot of firsts for you.  Handled very well considering what stress you were going through.   Very informative video, thank you for sharing.  What insurance coverage company did you have?   We are Canadian but have not cruised yet.  We aren’t booked until later this year.  
 

Thank you for sharing your video.  Hope your flight home was uneventful and you are fully recovered.  (And insurance covered everything). 

Thanks for the kind words.

 

Luckily we had multiple layers of travel insurance provided by our employer and credit card. The insurance company was Allianz Global Assistance. They were the largest issue during this situation as their call centre was utterly unreachable. Our nurse was on hold with the 24/7 emergency line for 4 hours and eventually gave up only when they emailed back.

 

I suppose it could just be an isolated case with Allianz or their call centre in Kitchener is understaffed due to covid, but it really didn't help the situation.

[canadianbear]

Thanks for the answer about insurance.  We live in Western Canada and usually use Pacific Blue Cross.  We have a long (50 day) South Pacific cruise later this year so will also look into the Medjet as well.  (Retired seniors). 

[kimcheeboy]

Just now, canadianbear said:

Thanks for the answer about insurance.  We live in Western Canada and usually use Pacific Blue Cross.  We have a long (50 day) South Pacific cruise later this year so will also look into the Medjet as well.  (Retired seniors). 

Oh yes, good choice on the Medjet. The senior doctor on Apex even personally recommended Medjet as the evac service he's enrolled in.

 

He made clear that most travel insurances will only air evac you to the nearest medical facility. Medjet is one of the few that will transport you to any medical facility in any country of your choice. A massive distinction in an emergency abroad.

[boone2]

Thank goodness you had adequate insurance. Until I retired  I worked as a nurse on a cruise line in between my ER job here and we, as staff,  couldn’t believe the number of people who came onboard with no insurance -at all. They soon found out what a mistake that was, even one night in the ICU could run Intothe thousands depending on the treatment.  And it has to be paid upfront and if they had insurance it could be claimed back. .  I do have a little bit of trouble with the phrase “kicked off” the ship.  Obviously the treatment you needed could not be done onboard and they facilitated what you needed. The cruise line I worked for had onshore care coordinators who remain in contact with the guest and the port agents are usually extremely helpful.  The hospitals at each port have been previously checked out to make sure they are of adequate standard. Obviously they may not be up to the standard of US or Canadian hospitals but as I say when you need more care than the onboard facilities can offer it is the wisest choice to make   Glad you’re feeling better 

[Fouremco]

DW and I can certainly sympathize. On our first Celebrity cruise, a 14-night Southern Caribbean sailing on the Eclipse, DW had a kidney stone attack mid way through the cruise. She has had them in the past, fortunately not too often, but the stones never pass on their own and she requires medical intervention. Given both her symptoms and her history, the doctors' recommendation was to disembark in St. Lucia and return to Ottawa for treatment, which we did.

 

It appears that things have changed over the past 8 or so years since her incident, but other than giving us unlimited use of ship to shore telephone, the ship provided no assistance in contacting our insurer or making ground transportation and new flight arrangements. Nor did they contact the port agent in Castries to help with arrangements. As we've stayed in St. Lucia on land holidays several times, and are very familiar with the island, that didn't really pose a problem for us, and the return home was uneventful. It's good to hear that the medical staff were proactive in attempting to make the necessary arrangements for you.

 

[kimcheeboy]

24 minutes ago, boone2 said:

Thank goodness you had adequate insurance. Until I retired  I worked as a nurse on a cruise line in between my ER job here and we, as staff,  couldn’t believe the number of people who came onboard with no insurance -at all. They soon found out what a mistake that was, even one night in the ICU could run Intothe thousands depending on the treatment.  And it has to be paid upfront and if they had insurance it could be claimed back. .  I do have a little bit of trouble with the phrase “kicked off” the ship.  Obviously the treatment you needed could not be done onboard and they facilitated what you needed. The cruise line I worked for had onshore care coordinators who remain in contact with the guest and the port agents are usually extremely helpful.  The hospitals at each port have been previously checked out to make sure they are of adequate standard. Obviously they may not be up to the standard of US or Canadian hospitals but as I say when you need more care than the onboard facilities can offer it is the wisest choice to make   Glad you’re feeling better 

 

Sorry for the click-baitish title. It's to appease the Youtube gods.

 

I wouldn't say so much that I was kicked off the ship, but I wasn't given the option to stay. I understand it was the best thing for me but there were a lot of considerations in my mind at the time. 

 

To stay on the ship, yes there was a considerable risk of septic shock without a full trauma center resource onboard. After the IV, I did feel stable and wasn't in much pain (although probably from the drugs). We were well outside the range of a helo from the US mainland and the next day was a sea day enroute to Nassau.

 

To be disembarked in the DR, a lot more unknowns at play. How good was the hospital? How safe is the area? Does anybody speak English? Where is my wife going to stay? Where is my wife going to eat? How safe was it for my wife to be alone transiting around? If this goes bad, how long would I have to stay there?

 

Given the choice, I still would've rolled the dice to stay onboard at my own risk. At least I would know and trust in my wife's safety and well-being. It came down to a bad choice versus a worse choice.

[flyingandcruising]

Even with that burger, the food looked a lot better then the hospital food here. I’m curious what the medical bills were. 

[lots-of-km2]

3 hours ago, kimcheeboy said:

The insurance company was Allianz Global Assistance. They were the largest issue during this situation as their call centre was utterly unreachable. Our nurse was on hold with the 24/7 emergency line for 4 hours and eventually gave up only when they emailed back.

 

Yikes!  How were you able to let your insurer know what's going on if you couldn't reach them by phone?  Do they have an emergency email address, or a phone number that you could send texts to?  (I rely on Allianz for travel health insurance so reading about your experience is really informative). 

 

Glad that you ended up with good medical care in the DR and arrived back home safe and sound and Covid-free. 

[boone2]

3 hours ago, kimcheeboy said:

 

Sorry for the click-baitish title. It's to appease the Youtube gods.

 

I wouldn't say so much that I was kicked off the ship, but I wasn't given the option to stay. I understand it was the best thing for me but there were a lot of considerations in my mind at the time. 

 

 

To stay on the ship, yes there was a considerable risk of septic shock without a full trauma center resource onboard. After the IV, I did feel stable and wasn't in much pain (although probably from the drugs). We were well outside the range of a helo from the US mainland and the next day was a sea day enroute to Nassau.

 

To be disembarked in the DR, a lot more unknowns at play. How good was the hospital? How safe is the area? Does anybody speak English? Where is my wife going to stay? Where is my wife going to eat? How safe was it for my wife to be alone transiting around? If this goes bad, how long would I have to stay there?

 

Given the choice, I still would've rolled the dice to stay onboard at my own risk. At least I would know and trust in my wife's safety and well-being. It came down to a bad choice versus a worse choice.

I understand that you were feeling better but if you had got sepsis your life would have been in danger and they have limited staff and resources to keep a patient in the clinic. Some of the ships I worked on only had 2 nurses and one would have to stay up all night with the other been on call for all other emergencies and running the clinic during the day.   It’s a decision no one likes if they are feeling better but I think it was the right one and it worked out well for you. I hope you have trouble free cruising in future and no recurrence. Very interesting to see the follow up as we sometimes didn’t hear what happened to medically disembarked patients 

[SeaPete]

I was looking into medjet and found this on their website.  (Almost all of the islands I looked up were level 3 so Medjet would not fly there due to what I read.  )

Due to the high risk of sending registered aircraft and personnel into countries where the United States Department of State has issued a travel advisory of level 3 or 4, membership services are subject to exclusion or limitation in these areas. A complete list of travel advisories for every country in the world may be found at the U.S. Department of State’s website.

[boone2]

I’m so glad you changed the title of the post Kimcheeboy😜

[lots-of-km2]

@kimcheeboy,  it's good that you changed part of your post title, but are you still doing your AMA?  If you are, I'd really appreciate an answer to my question in post #11.  

[kimcheeboy]

On 1/17/2022 at 2:43 PM, lots-of-km2 said:

 

Yikes!  How were you able to let your insurer know what's going on if you couldn't reach them by phone?  Do they have an emergency email address, or a phone number that you could send texts to?  (I rely on Allianz for travel health insurance so reading about your experience is really informative). 

 

Glad that you ended up with good medical care in the DR and arrived back home safe and sound and Covid-free. 

So Allianz does have a 24/7 emergency help line you're supposed to call when you need their services. Unfortunately it was this call centre was unreachable for hours during my crisis.

 

They also have an email address which thankfully replied before we could get a hold of anyone on the phone so the hospital and transport was coordinated all via email. Eventually a case manager will call you and I highly recommend you answer the call because there's no way to directly reach them otherwise (likely intentional).

 

I suspect this call centre issue was just an isolated COVID staffing related issue and likely won't be a problem in the future. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by kimcheeboy

[Encore37]

Interesting video!  Glad you’re ok and thanks for sharing.

 

After seeing this video it’s shameful to see that a third world country’s hospital rooms, food and wait times are better than Canada.  Can’t wait to get out of this sinking country!

[Gracelyn]

Valuable information! Thank you. Did your insurance cover Covid related sickness. I’ve been confused with the travel advisory level 4 for cruising coverage. 
thanks

Gracelyn

[kimcheeboy]

11 hours ago, Gracelyn said:

Valuable information! Thank you. Did your insurance cover Covid related sickness. I’ve been confused with the travel advisory level 4 for cruising coverage. 
thanks

Gracelyn

Can't speak for covid-related sickness as it didn't apply in my case. Kind of surprised we actually didn't get it during our the hours spent in a packed Dominican Republic ER shoulder to shoulder with people coughing and hacking. We did bring our own true N95 masks which we wore diligently at the airport, on the plane, on the ship and while in DR.