Cruise Ship Medical Nightmare: Man Evacuated for Emergency Surgery, Kicked Out of Hospital Because He Can’t Pay

The family of a cruise ship passenger evacuated to a private for-profit hospital in Mexico during a medical emergency were stunned when doctors stopped his urgent treatment after they could not immediately prove they had the thousands of dollars demanded for surgery.

Chase Kehler, a 22-year-old college student from Little Rock in Arkansas, was diagnosed by cruise ship doctors as suffering with acute appendicitis which, if left untreated, can be life-threatening.

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He had set sail from New Orleans on a Mexican vacation with his family just a day before, Fox 16 reported, on the Carnival cruise ship Triumph.

The Mexican coast guard evacuated Kehler to the Amerimed private hospital in Cancun, where the family said admission cost $6,000 and surgery came with a $25,000 price tag. The ship’s doctor had made the arrangements.

“When we didn’t have the $25,000 they stopped all of Chase’s treatment. They unhooked his IV, they gave him no more medicine,” Janie Kehler, Chase’s mom, told Fox 16.

Writing on her Facebook page, the mother said they were then “forcibly sent” to a nearby general hospital “in a very dangerous area, with limited services and severe lack of staff” because at 2 a.m. they were unable to front the surgery money immediately as a “guarantee.”

“The Amerimed ambulance workers left Chase sitting in a wheelchair in a hallway filled with people and then just left us there. Every hospital in a third world country you’ve ever seen depicted in a movie was what we were dropped into,” she wrote.

After an hour of waiting “in a filthy hallway in a too-small gown” without being checked or triaged, Kehler decided to take action on behalf of her son, who was by now too ill to fly back to America and seek treatment at home.

She was able to stop a passing paramedic in the hospital corridor, who raced her son for free in an ambulance to Hospital Victoria, a private medical facility, where he had surgery within the hour. This hospital only asked for a $6,000 deposit.

“Chase was absolutely unable to fly via plane or air ambulance back to the U.S. so I felt we had no choice but to proceed with surgery. I have just spoken to the surgeon. Chase did fine in surgery. His appendix had not ruptured but was ‘black with a large amount of pus’,” Kehler wrote.

The mother said she had not purchased travel insurance for the cruise.

Amerimed Hospital Cancun and Carnival Cruises did not respond immediately to Newsweek ’s request for comment.

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