“Get your money ready”: it turns out why Russians are not getting help at Egyptian resorts

Tourists must follow the rule: “Don’t drink, don’t fall, don’t get sick.”

A Russian tourist who fell from a hotel balcony in Hurghada on January 24 is still in a coma. Ekaterinburg resident Ivan, 61 years old, his wife and little grandchildren, who came on vacation with their grandparents, are in shock. Their daughter has flown to her parents, but her relatives can do nothing to help the head of the family.

This difficult situation has once again raised a pressing question: how much does the health insurance included in the tour package protect us?

According to his daughter Olga, the victim Ivan Shiryaev was taken to the hospital not even in an ambulance, but in an ordinary car. According to Russian insurance, at first they didn’t want to put me in a hospital at all, demanding $1.5 thousand. True, after desperate calls to the insurance company, loved ones were still hospitalized. But now, when the foreigner has not come out of a coma for almost a week, the hospital refuses further treatment, demanding that the patient be transported to his homeland. And air ambulance, which is necessary for a patient in a coma, is such an expensive “pleasure” that independent tourists cannot afford it at all, and insurance companies are trying in every possible way to avoid it.

“They are looking for an excuse to blame everything on the victim himself,” says Lidia Ivanovna, the Shiryaevs’ hotel neighbor. “That’s why they ask: did he drink before he fell?” Did you hide any chronic disease when applying for insurance? Yes, the railings on the local balconies are simply low, and the floor is second only, so people fearlessly lean on them, looking around the surroundings. And if at this moment the head suddenly begins to spin or the pressure jumps, which often happens during acclimatization, then the young person may tumble down. And here is a 61-year-old man, just the third day since he arrived, spent time in the sun, and then went out onto the balcony, his eyes darkened and that’s all…

The Russian Consulate General replies that Shiryaev’s relatives have already turned to them for help with transportation and now “the issue is being discussed.” The Hurghada hospital confirms that “the Russian’s condition is unchanged,” and the hospital cannot afford to keep such foreign patients on artificial life support for more than one week.

According to Ivan’s relatives, he was diagnosed with a head, arm and leg injury, but this is not a final diagnosis, and it is impossible to make an accurate diagnosis while the patient is unconscious. And since there is no accurate diagnosis, the insurance company is not going to pay for the sanitary flight.

“The hospital should have done a blood test for substances, even if the patient was unconscious,” says insurance agent Oksana Vikentyeva. – If the examination showed that the person who fell was under the influence of any substances, this is not an insured event. If not, then the standard insurance included in the standard tour package should cover treatment, medications, and return home. Relatives need to carefully study the insurance policy, the name of the insurance program is indicated there, it must be typed into the Internet and look at the conditions. If your Russian agent shows misunderstanding or unwillingness to seek consensus, each insurance company has an “assistance” – a counterparty – in the territory of the receiving party. Then you need to call and go there.

– What if the victim drank a glass of beer on the beach before this?

– Alas, a glass of beer or a bottle of vodka does not matter – alcohol in the blood makes the case uninsurable. In this case, relatives will have to prepare money. Find out the prices of private clinics in Hurghada and multiply them by three, without “baksheesh” (bribe. – Note auto) a patient in a coma will not be taken there. Medicines, solutions for IVs – in the event of force majeure, the Egyptians multiply all prices by three. As for the flight, in the best case, if the patient wakes up and is able to sit, it will cost the standard price of a Hurghada – Yekaterinburg flight, as soon as seats become available for the patient and his accompanying persons. If not, then a special board with intensive care and an emergency team is very expensive. And private travelers don’t like to fly to Egypt at all; there’s a war zone nearby.

And when asked how to protect yourself from such cases, both the insurer and the doctors unanimously advise that it is better “not to drink, not to fall, and not to get sick at all.” And they warn that in some countries popular with our tourists, health care in general may be at a good level, but regarding tourists there is its own specificity. In Egypt, for foreigners, prices for everything related to their treatment are multiplied several times at once. In Latin American countries, when complaining of malaise, they give out a powerful painkiller pill, which has long been banned in Europe and the USA; it can cause blood pressure changes in unaccustomed people. But in Sri Lanka they don’t know how to help with a common cold and immediately “knock out” the patient with thermonuclear remedies for tropical fevers.