US hospitals off-limits for druggies

Air Ambulance crews have been turned down at the eleventh hour on several recent attempts to medi-vac patients to the States. In those cases, insurers had to negotiate with alternative hospitals in the Caribbean before the patient could be flown overseas for treatment.

It is understood that U.S. border control has traditionally made exceptions to its draconian vetting process to allow critically ill patients to receive treatment — even if they have a criminal record. But industry insiders say the Stop List policy has become much stricter in recent years and applications for visa-waivers are now more likely to be turned down.

Naz Farrow, chief operating officer of Colonial which flies around 30 patients overseas annually, said: “Previously if it was a medical emergency they might make an exception, but in the last year or so they are getting much tighter on that.

“Sometimes we need to look at other areas if someone can’t get in to the States or Canada because they are on the stop list.

“We had one case last year where a guy had a massive cardiac arrest and we had to take him to the Bahamas.”

Lynda Davis, vice president of U.S. company Med-Valu which works with Colonial on overseas transfers said the situation was made more complicated by the fact that case managers rarely found out about the patient’s record till the visa was blocked.

“We often don’t know about it until they are refused and we have to make other arrangements.”

Eloise Bell, who runs Bermuda Air Ambulance, which is responsible for the majority of medical evacuations from the island, said she had encountered similar issues.

But she said it was not common, in her experience, for a patient to be refused unless they were on the stop list for a serious crime.

“If it is an issue that happened a long time ago or it is for one spliff or something like that we can usually get them through.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Consulate in Bermuda said the decision was down to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol staff.