Anyone know what the procedure is for getting someone flown home from abroad on a medical tranfsfer

[Moomin]

My brother is in hospital in the Maldives, where he has been working. He has an abcess on his liver which has affected his stomach and lungs. He's out of immediate danger but his doctor would like him to return to the UK to recover as this will take approx 3 months, all being well. He has insurnace tied to his job (diver) but this only covers him for accidents. I'm pretty sure he will have been crap at other travel insurance so I'm quite prepared for the fact we may have to fly him back under our own steam. He may be well enough to fly in about a week but will still need a special transfer (which I assume entails having a doc/nurse to accompany him???)

Does anyone know where we go from here? How is a medical transfer sorted? He needs to come back home to us in the Midlands but he was last registered with a GP in M'chester. I rang them this a.m. but they worse worse than useless so I feel I need to ring back with a proper request (for what I don't know!).

Any advice gratefully received.

Can these people help?

Another company here

I would think you just need to get the experienced professionals involved.

Will he be being admitted to hospital on his return? If so I would imagine that the hospitals should be liasing. You could try and ring your local hospital and speak to the transport department and see if they are able to shed any light on it. I have only ever done one of these and it was with an American company, so not much help to you, but I am pretty sure the hospitals worked it out between themselves. Of course if you are not insured you will have to pick up the bill. You could try the transport department, they are more likely to know proceedure than the GP IMO. Hope he is well again soon, he sounds like he was in a bit of a bad way.

The sister of a good friend does this as a job, she flies off, makes sure the patient is fit to fly and accompanies them home. thought it was normally organised by insurers though.

Bundle, that ladcy probably works for one of the companies I linked.

The thing is that there will need to be quite a lot of admin, esp if the patient is on a stretcher, or needs medical monitoring whilst on route.

These companies are used by the insurance companies to do the job, they know the ropes.

Can you go through his work insurance? He may not be covered for a non-accident but they should still be able to help you with how to arrange repatriation as they must know how to go about it.

Thanks for advice so far. It's a bit difficult getting precise details as his gf is French with good but not excellent English and I'm also aware of the stress she's under herself at the moment so don't want to have to ask her to do too much just yet. I will ask her about the work insurance though.

It's also a bit hard trying to sort things out through my brother; he has lucid stretches but also is a bit delirious with the pain and the drugs he must be on. I spoke to him yesterday morning and he was compus mentus but very low and crying. His gf said he has periods when he doesn't make much sense at all. It's all a bit worrying really .

After talking to dh though, we think it would be a good idea to wait to see how he responds to the drugs he's now on and also maybe speak to his doctor in a day or so when they know a bit more. There's always the chance I spose that in 1 week or two he may be well enough to fly home with his gf helping him, as a normal passenger rather than on a stretcher or whatever. He'd need a doc's report for that, I guess, so we'd have to wait and see, as I said. If he can't fly back normally, we might have to look into one of those companies easy posted for me earlier (thanks easy). Will also ring our local hospital tomorrow to see if they can help.