After falling on a cruise ship and suffering fractures to her hip and elbow, a 64-year-old Virginia woman spent nine days “stranded” in an Indonesian hospital that staff admitted was ill-equipped to treat her injuries, her daughter said.
Carnival Cruise staff aboard the Luminosa determined that Denise Hammond would require surgical intervention beyond her capacity after taking an X-ray on Oct. 4, her daughter, Rachel Matthews, told Fox News Digital.
Four days later, Hammond was sent to Siloam Hospital in Manado.
There, her daughter said, it turned out that her nightmare was far from over.
At first, Matthews said, the family was disappointed that Hammond’s long-awaited cruise had been cut short.
The month-long Carnival cruise began in Seattle and was scheduled to stop at “a cluster of ports in Asia and the Pacific,” eventually ending in Australia.
So far, Matthews said, his mother has visited six ports in Japan, and the ship was en route to Indonesia when she fell.
Denise Hammond, 64, was pictured stopping off on her Carnival cruise before falling and breaking her hip and elbow on Oct. 4. GoFundMe
“I mean, it’s scary. When he first fell, at first we were just like, ‘Oh, man, that’s terrible.’ But we never thought he would have trouble getting the medical care he needed,” Matthews lamented.
Although Hammond was given a solo “VIP room” at the hospital, Matthews said, “the conditions of the hospital are absolutely horrible in terms of cleanliness … nothing you would expect from a hospital room in America or any other part of the world.”
There, a doctor told him that the hospital did not have the equipment to treat his broken bones. The medic “dragged” Hammond’s arm, his daughter claims, and “tried to get him to walk on his feet.”
Denise Hammond disembarked six times on a month-long cruise before suffering the injury, her daughter said. Wikipedia
“They didn’t do any scans or blood tests, give any kind of anticoagulants. … We were worried he was going to die in that hospital,” Matthews said. “Every time I talk to him, he feels scared. He said he felt alone, abandoned. He was afraid he would die [there] and never came out. It was really scary.”
Siloam Hospital could not immediately be reached for comment.
Although Hammond regularly takes cruises and always buys travel insurance, Matthews said, he began to hit a roadblock in his efforts to secure a medical evacuation.
Daughter Denise Hammond said her mother felt “alone [and] abandoned,” and “feared he was going to die and never get out” of the hospital in Manado. Rachel Matthews
The family began working with the US embassy, which began connecting them with transport companies to take Hammond to the nearest hospital that could treat him.
The nearest such center, the family was told, was nearly 4,000 miles away in Bangkok, Thailand.
The first transportation company charged $60,000 to get Hammond there, Matthews said, while the hospital required a $40,000 down payment before he arrived.
Denise Hammond finally arrived at the Bangkok hospital that was treating her on Friday, her daughter told Fox News Digital.Rachel Matthews
Payment does not cover the entire Hammond procedure.
“We were desperate to get him out of there, and the insurance company wasn’t helping,” Matthews said.
An orthopedic surgeon who had previously worked with the 64-year-old Hammond in Virginia helped the family draft a letter to their insurance company, which the family declined to name, citing their ongoing negotiations, urging it to expedite help.
A Virginia congressman also sent a letter to the company on Hammond’s behalf, urging it to help the injured woman, Matthews said.
“He saw a much more intensive surgery than he would have had nine days ago if he had had the surgery he should have,” Matthews said. “The injury is healing back improperly.”
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As of Wednesday, after the national news got word of Hammond’s story, his insurance company helped with transportation costs.
But his family expects his medical expenses to exceed his insurance limits and must deal with the cost of transporting his luggage back to the US, data charges and “just all the extra costs associated with being stranded in a foreign country,” Matthews said.
On Friday, Hammond arrived at Samitivej Srinakarin Hospital for his initial evaluation, Matthews said.
“My mother’s body has been put under incredible stress and life-threatening danger due to this long and unacceptable delay in medical care,” Matthews wrote in an update on the family’s GoFundMe page, which had raised nearly $30,000 as of Friday afternoon. “We will not know until he is further assessed the type of damage that has increased as a result of this negligence, and how it will affect his quality of life in the long term. Please pray that this damage is minimal.”
Carnival, whose press office could not immediately be reached, told USA Today that it has been in regular contact with Hammond and his family and is “pleased” he is nearing his return trip.
Matthews said Hammond “isn’t sure if he’s going to continue the way he’s been.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
