Sick mum stranded in foreign hospital
Family faces bills of $40k to bring mum home following insurance ruling. By Josh Fagan.
A Kiwi woman hospitalised with pneumonia in Malaysia is fighting her travel insurance company who are refusing to cover her medical costs.
Bronwyn Ross, 58, has spent the past 11 days in hospital in Kuala Lumpur, and found out this week that Southern Cross Travel Insurance knocked back her claim because they said her illness was linked to a pre-existing medical condition.
Her family has spent more than $10,000 on medical bills and rebooking flights and accommodation, and may have to pay $30,000 for a medical flight home to Otago.
Her son Kane Beardsmore said Southern Cross’ ruling that his mother had a pre-existing medical condition was ‘‘absolute rubbish’’ and he has a doctor’s letter saying her severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) had been stable since she’s been in hospital and wasn’t a contributing factor to her contracting pneumonia.
Beardsmore said Southern Cross initially didn’t return calls or emails then delayed their decision for several days before confirming they would not cover any medical costs or expenses.
‘‘We were thinking the whole time it was going to be covered and we thought ‘ah, yeah, she’ll be right’ because we’d filled all the forms in correctly. It was pretty hard to take; it’s not cheap to have someone in hospital over here. It’s a bit on the nose really.’’
Southern Cross did not respond to requests for comment before deadline, but in their email to Ross they said ‘‘after review of all the medical information to hand our medical advisor has confirmed that your current admission can be related to your COPD and as your COPD is a preexisting condition, we are unable to cover any costs or losses incurred directly or indirectly related to this condition’’.
Beardsmore and his mother were in Kuala Lumpur to see his cousin’s daughter Isla compete in a junior ice skating championship.
But the holiday took a turn for the worse when Ross felt short of breath and was too weak to walk on their third day there. Beardsmore took her down to the ice skating in a wheelchair but the following day she was unable to get out of bed and he took her to hospital.
‘‘Obviously she’s pretty down, she thinks she’s sort of ruining everyone’s holiday and not feeling too flash about that. That’s definitely stressed her out more – especially us thinking it was going to be covered.’’
He said he would contest the Southern Cross decision, but in the meantime was left out of pocket thousands of dollars.
Doctors have advised him that unless he was able to pay for the medical flight, they would need to wait at least another week until she was well enough to travel without an oxygen tank.
He said it has been an exhausting process for the family but they were determined to challenge the decision.