A
day before the end of their cruise around the Med, the couple claim they were
ordered off the ship and abandoned in an Italian hospital. Mrs Hayward, who has
mild dementia, was sedated against her will and left bruised and screaming for
help, they said.
As
the ship sailed off without them, distraught Mr Hayward, 87, who fought in the
Korean War and at Suez, was left in a hospital corridor with their
hastily-packed suitcases, with only a trolley to sleep on and no means of
contacting family.
Italian
doctors apparently struggled to diagnose Mrs Hayward’s dementia, leading to
various treatments causing what she calls ‘eight days of torture and
starvation’.Yesterday, as he visited his wife who is still ill in a British
hospital, Mr Hayward said: ‘They dumped us and sailed off, leading to a true
nightmare of literally screaming for help and being ignored. This really has
been the most traumatic, expensive and without exaggeration the very worst
experience of my life. As one who served in the front line in the Korean War
and the Suez conflict, they were doddles by comparison.’
The
couple’s traumatic ordeal began in the early hours of April 25 as they slept in
their sumptuous cabin aboard the Seven Seas Explorer – which the cruise company
boasted was ‘the most luxurious ship ever built’ at its fanfare launch in 2015.
Every cabin on the marble-floored £300million liner is an opulent suite with a
balcony to the sea.
Mrs
Hayward awoke from a nightmare at 3am and had a panic attack linked to her
dementia. Her husband recalled: ‘I switched on the light and she started
kicking at me and shouting. She looked wild-eyed and angry.’
He
said this had happened once before, at home, and on that occasion she was
quickly calmed. But this time, in unfamiliar surroundings, he said, ‘the more I
attempted to calm her, the louder she became. In desperation, I rang reception
to ask for assistance and shortly after a security guard appeared and began
shouting loudly at Marguerite to “Keep quiet”. Then our suite was filled with
several people including the ship’s doctor and his nurse.’
They
injected Mrs Hayward with a sedative and she soon returned to sleep, with her
husband cuddling her. The next morning, she was calm and relaxed and remembered
nothing of the night-time drama. The couple were about to go to breakfast when
they were summoned to a meeting with the ship’s officers. Mr Hayward recalled:
‘One of them said the incident had been reported to their head office in Miami,
who had ordered we must leave the ship immediately. I pleaded with him to let
us stay because the ship was docking at Rome in less than 24 hours and we would
be on our way home anyway. But they said Miami had given them their orders.’
The
cruise firm claims there was ‘mutual agreement’ to leave the ship, but the
couple strongly dispute this and say they were ‘thrown off’ despite their
protestations. The company said it was ‘in Mrs Hayward’s best interests’ to be
seen by medics ashore.
They
were handed a medical bill for $1,370 (£1,000) then whisked ashore by tender to
the southern Italian port city of Sorrento, where an ambulance was waiting
along with a man who it later transpired was the cruise company’s port agent. A
letter from the ship’s doctor to the Italian medics stated: ‘Suspected
diagnosis: paranoid schizophrenia.’ The couple are adamant this was a
misdiagnosis of Mrs Hayward’s disorientation.
At
the quayside, said Mr Hayward, ‘my wife was asked to get onto a stretcher - but
she was standing quite calmly and declined to get onto it, so they manhandled
her into the back.They stopped me from getting in with her. At this, she became
very agitated, so reluctantly they allowed me to get into the front.’
At
a run-down hospital in Sorrento – photos show crumbling exterior walls – Mrs
Hayward was put on a drip and given an oxygen mask, quickly becoming
unconscious, her husband said.‘She lay flat on her back for several hours with
her eyes closed and her mouth wide open. I sat in the corridor a few feet away.
Everyone ignored me and no-one I tried to speak to spoke English. Marguerite
eventually woke up and started screaming. I was distraught.’
Mr
Hayward was given a chair to sit on, and told he could sleep overnight on a
trolley downstairs. The Haywards, of Lavenham, Suffolk, had no mobile phone
with them, but luckily, a British woman who happened to be in the hospital
phoned the couple’s son Martin in the UK.
Martin
Hayward already knew something was wrong, as he had been telephoned by the port
agent. The agent had told him his mother had suffered a ‘psychotic’ episode and
been transferred off the ship to hospital. Martin said: ‘The agent said he
wasn’t there, he was driving home. He gave me the hospital’s phone number and I
tried to ring it more than 50 times, but no one answered.
‘Then
I received a call from an English lady who had found dad very distressed, and
let him speak to me. He was distraught, sitting with his suitcases outside a
room where mum was screaming in fear.’Martin, 56, a marketing consultant,
immediately booked himself on the next flight to Naples, and when he arrived in
Sorrento the next day, he found his mother ‘sedated, on a drip, and wearing a
T-shirt covered in blood’.
He
said: ‘It was an absolute nightmare situation. My 87-year-old dad hadn't slept
for two nights and was very worried about his wife being treated in a foreign
hospital, where no-one spoke English, for conditions she didn't have.‘He had
literally been abandoned in a foreign land and was on his last legs. My mum,
who was walking before she was forced into hospital, was now horizontal and
sedated, covered in bruises and soiled clothing, alone in a very basic hospital
bed. Nobody at the hospital seemed to know about her dementia and they were
obsessed with finding a medical condition. The cruise company were nowhere to
be seen.’
Mr
Hayward Senior said: ‘I could not have endured it very much longer without
becoming a casualty myself. What almost literally saved my life was meeting
Martin, my son, who had just flown in. After seeing Marguerite, who briefly
opened her eyes and tried to speak, Martin took me somewhere for a meal, the
first food I had had since dinner on the ship on the evening before they
decided to throw us off.’
Martin
arranged for his exhausted father to fly straight home, then spent a week
caring for his mother and arranging an air ambulance to get her back to
Britain.He said: ‘In the hospital, she was dehydrated and not given food and
simply left to lie in bed under sedation, without the care needed to prevent
bed sores which we are told now were exacerbated by her lack of food. Her
agitation increased since she was put through so many unnecessary tests. I
tried to give mum a sip of water. Her mouth was completely gummed up with dead
skin after four days of the oxygen mask. I kept syringing water into her
mouth.’
Martin
claims he rang Seven Seas for help but was told the matter was in the hands of
the port agent and the couple’s insurance company. He said no one had seen the
port agent after the first day.Mrs Hayward was eventually flown back to the UK
on May 3 by private air ambulance – although Martin had to make his own way
home – and is now recovering at the West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds.
Her
husband said: ‘She came back from Italy in a very poor way. Her physical
injures alone include extensive bruising, damage to her heel and severe bed
sores. The wound nurse told us yesterday that the bed sores would take weeks
and potentially months to heal. She is still traumatised and distressed. At
least now she is in good care. All of the staff at the West Suffolk Hospital
have been wonderful.’
Mr
and Mrs Hayward have been married for 63 years, having met after he returned
from the Korean War where he served as a corporal in the Royal Electrical and
Mechanical Engineers. He also served in the Suez Crisis. After the Army, he
worked in sales and became marketing director of a multinational company. The
couple have two sons and three grandchildren.
Their
other son, Anthony, 57, a company director, said the whole family was furious.
He said: ‘Mum and dad were forced to disembark the ship against their will in
Sorrento despite mum being calm, alert and walking unaided ready for breakfast.
They pleaded to be able to stay on for one more day. They even offered to be
locked in their cabin if the ship wanted to reduce any perceived risk. They
were forced into a series of events that has had a devastating impact on mum
and dad's health.’The sons have written several letters of complaint to the
company’s CEO in America, Frank Del Rio, but have still not had any reply.
Yesterday
a spokesman for Regent Seven Seas said: ‘We are sorry to hear about the
complaints of the Hayward family, but our prayers are still with Mrs Hayward
for her complete recovery. While we understand that this is a very distressing
time for the family, we don’t fully agree with all the claims being made. To
preserve our guests’ privacy, we cannot comment to the specific medical
situation for which Mr Hayward had requested urgent assistance, however it is
our first priority to consider the safety and security of every one of our
guests. With this in mind, the shipboard doctor determined that it was in Mrs
Hayward’s best interests to receive the attention of medical specialists on
shore, to which Mr Hayward agreed.
‘Our
port agent and our shipboard staff made arrangements for both Mr and Mrs
Hayward to be taken to hospital; offered a hotel room; and contacted their
insurers to liaise with the medical professionals in hospital. Mr and Mrs
Hayward were introduced to the port agent, and a member of Regent’s team contacted
their insurer while still on board the ship. They were then escorted to an
ambulance by one of the ship’s medical staff. The port agent has confirmed that
the Haywards had access to the hospital’s interpreter from the day of
admittance.’
The
Haywards dispute the company’s version of events.
SOURCE: MailOnline, Sam
Greenhill and David Williams
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