Janice Sullivan
Medical Malpractice Of Ship's Doctor
Legend Of The Seas - October 2005
You feel ill, walk into an office that has no name on the door. You don't know the doctor's name, if he has credentials or what those credentials may be, where he lives nor his phone number. He has no references, no patients willing to vouch fo him, no credible organizations he is a member of, who can attest to his worthiness to take your $500. People choose a witch doctor with more information than this.
When you try to find him weeks later, he has packed up and moved, never to be seen again and you have no idea at all where to find him. There is no licensing board to call, no Better Business Bureau you can contact, and no government agency with any jurisdiction over him. Would you choose a doctor under these circumstances? This is what happens when passengers get sick at sea.
A flood of horror stories have begun to surface about medical care on cruise ships that would make your hair stand on end. People are dying, because doctors onboard have less experience on the human body and their complex issues than a back yard mechanic has repairing cars. In some cases, if the mechanic had stayed in a Holiday Inn Express, he might be more qualified than the doctors on some cruise ships.
Ships' doctors are getting away with the equivalent of voluntary manslaughter, when they should have the training, and often have the tools, but have not a clue how to properly diagnose patients, or use the diagnostic tools they have on the ship.
Who are these people hired by the cruise lines? That is what attorneys and victims alike would like to know, as the cruise lines protect the identity of the doctors, attorneys can't locate them.
This is most puzzling because these are PUBLIC companies, with stock traded on the U.S stock exchanges. Yet when it comes to medical services, they conduct business with the ethics of pirates in a skiff pillaging passengers off the shore of Somalia, lawless and ungoverned. They have corporate offices in American cities, not just mere sales agent offices, but offices listed as "headquarters" by the Better Business Bureau. Yet, they get the same immunity from conviction when it comes to deaths onboard their ships as foreign embassy delegates have in New York City.
Now, there is some good information to have if you are planning a cruise. You have to ask yourself do I want a wannabee doctor tending to my critical needs should the worst case scenario unfold?
If the industry does not want to provide for medical needs of the patients, and be accountable as all other doctors in industrialized nations are, then legislators need to consider this fact, and move to initiate legislation that forces cruise ships to abide by the laws of modern nations, instead of those of backwoods voodoo doctors.
In Alaska, when citizens were fed up, they voted in a $50 head tax placed on cruise ship passengers so they could have funding for paid environmental monitors on each cruise. The industry fought it heavily. But, the good people of Alaksa prevailed.
In continuing on that plan of action, I am calling for each state to require any cruise ship calling in their ports to have a U.S. licensed, qualified emergency medicine doctor onboard the ship at all times, both in port and while sailing to or from any port in their state.
Each doctor must be an employee of the cruise line, so the cruise line has a vested interest in montioring the doctor. As well, the certification of the doctor, his home address, and all documentation for the identity of the doctor must be kept on file, and must be furnished to any passenger boarding the ship and utilizing the services of the doctor, or the passenger's legal representative. This information will need to be updated and verified annually, as doctors move from ship to ship and line to line on a continuing basis. It is sheer nonsense, that any doctor providing services could remain anonymous to the very patients treated by him/her. This is just insanity.
Is this really a problem? Ask Janice Sullivan. She hit her head during a slip and fall accident on RCCI Legend Of The Sea. She was given some mild pain medicine, but no xrays. Upon arriving home she sought emergency treatment only to end up having brain surgery for a blood clot she received in the fall. The ship's "doctor" ran home to Sweden, never to be seen again. He can not be found, because RCCI protects his right to privacy.
Elizabeth Carlisle
Recently, Elizabeth Carlisle's lawsuit against the cruise line for her appendix rupture that caused lifetime sterility for a girl age 14, was dismissed after a ten year fight in the courts. That Carnival Cruise Lines' Ecstasy cruise ship doctor diagnosed her with the flu, and only upon arriving home did she get REAL medical treatment. Her cruise ship Italian doctor quickly packed his bags and went back to Italy, never seen again, with the cruise line protecting his right to privacy as well.
Gary Goodwillie
Gary Goodwillie was on a three week cruise. When he had chest pain and pain in his left arm the ship's doctor told him that he had indigestion. I am not a doctor and know that is a number one warning sign of an impending heart attack, a fact that escaped this 'trained medical professional' onboard a Radisson Seven Seas (Regent Seven Seas) Navigator ship.
He was pronounced dead after he had a heart attack a short time later, and then was revived by several passengers who were themselves doctors in the U.S. using a defibrillator found onboard he ship. They brought him back to life. There has been no explaination why the ship's doctor could not use the defibrillator and instead declared Goodwillie dead.
Goodwillie sued the cruise line for medical malpractice, it was thrown out of court and the suit was deemed frivolous. The court then ordered Goodwillie to pay the cruise line's attorney fees of $50,000. This is nothing more than a terror tactic to prevent medical malpractice victims from speaking up. Again, the cruise line refused to provide contact information for doctor death who scampered back to his native land.
How Many Passengers See A Doctor During A Cruise?
In 2002 there only 977 reportable cases of cruise ship Norovirus to the U.S CDC. In subsequent years the numbers continued to increase as the industry grew. In 2006 the number of cases had risen to 4200. There have been 2391 to date in 2007.
These are only the Norovirus cases that were reported to the CDC. As long as less than 3% of the passengers onboard are infected, there is no requirement to report to the CDC.
On a ship with 3000 passengers, if only 2% were affected, that is still 107 passengers. The real number of passengers infected by epidemics onboard will never be known, but can be assumed to be much larger than we report on this website. Not only that, there are many more reasons passengers see a doctor while aboard a cruise ship.
We can tax the cruise lines to protect the environment and take a share of their casino winnings as well as placing monitors on their vessels to ensure compliance.
We should be able to tax them to provide for medical rights for Americans as well. The number of people becoming patients has skyrocketed with the huge increased incidence of epidemics on cruise ships. We need to action now to stop the quackery.
Other Cases Of Doctor Malpractice:
Edith Horn - Death
Graig (Craig) Hosmer - Death
Helen Kerr - Death
Lorenzo Lombardo - Death
Margarethe Bloss - Death
Pat Horn - Death
