{"id":20141,"date":"2012-04-02T11:01:55","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T15:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=20141"},"modified":"2012-04-02T11:44:10","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T15:44:10","slug":"injured-tourists-denied-medical-treatment-in-bahamas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2012\/04\/injured-tourists-denied-medical-treatment-in-bahamas","title":{"rendered":"Injured Tourists Denied Medical Treatment in Bahamas"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Vacation Hell in The Bahamas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For six days, Diandra Barreto and boyfriend Michael Gallinella were stuck in a Bahamas hospital: she with a dislocated leg, spine fractures and a lacerated liver, he with broken ribs, a punctured lung and a possible neck injury.<\/p>\n

Two hospitals, one in the Bahamas and the other in Miami, refused to mend the uninsured couple, relatives and officials said, unless they paid thousands of dollars upfront.<\/p>\n

So for nearly a week, they waited.<\/p>\n

On Friday night, with the help of a little diplomacy and a lot of North Jersey fund raising, they finally found their passage home in a $22,000 flight to Hackensack University Medical Center \u2014 paid for from the pockets of local businesses, friends, family and legislators \u2014 and a sizeable federal emergency loan.<\/p>\n

The ordeal began at the end of a weeklong vacation to the Bahamas for the couple, who met while working for a restaurant chain and began dating a few months ago. They were headed back from the beach to their hotel on Sunday \u2014 their last day \u2014 on a rented scooter when Gallinella either hit or tried to avoid a pothole and crashed into a van, relatives said. Gallinella, 36, of Woodbridge, suffered extensive injuries, including several broken ribs, a punctured lung and numbness in his arm from a suspected neck injury, according to Lisa Skroder, co-owner of Trinity Air Ambulance, which flew the couple to Teteboro Friday evening.<\/p>\n

Both patients had chest tubes, requiring them to be transported on stretchers, Skroder said.<\/p>\n

But it was Barreto, 24, who was hurting most: a dislocated leg, several spine fractures and a lacerated liver, which may have been bleeding internally during the past week, according to Skroder.<\/p>\n

By the time Melo had arrived at the Nassau, Bahamas hospital Monday afternoon, Barreto\u2019s condition had gone from critical to stable. Yet the possibility of internal bleeding was still real, and she needed surgery on her hip, Melo said \u2014 an operation not scheduled until next Wednesday.<\/p>\n

A U.S. Embassy official at the hospital advised that because of the bruised organs and Gallinella\u2019s need for an MRI \u2014 for which Melo said the hospital was asking $2,000 \u2014 transport to the United States was crucial.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needed an MRI and the hospital in the Bahamas wouldn\u2019t give it to him unless he paid first,\u201d Skroder said. \u201cAnd none of the Florida hospitals would take them. They told us to bring them to New Jersey since they\u2019re residents there and can get Medicare.\u201d<\/p>\n

BY: DENISA R. SUPERVILLE
\nwww.northjersey.com<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The hospital in The Bahamas refused to help the uninsured tourists, who had life-threatening injuries, unless they paid ten of thousands of dollars upfront.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[130,33,73,113],"class_list":["post-20141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headlines","tag-medical","tag-tourism","tag-travel-2","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20141\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}