Editor’s note: In the following account, ITN is not printing the name of the cruise line involved because 1) we feel the company acted responsibly and may be considered an injured party, itself, and 2) the points being raised pertain to all cruise lines and we didn’t want to unfairly single out one firm.
ITN subscribers Gloria Oana of Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, and Lewis Solomon of Chevy Chase, Maryland, independently alerted this magazine to a situation they encountered on a November-December 2011 cruise from Dubai, UAE, to Cape Town, South Africa, the implications of which may be of interest to any cruise ship passenger.
Two weeks into their cruise, Gloria and her husband, Nicholas, each came down with a respiratory condition and sought treatment from the ship’s physician, a “Dr. S.” Meanwhile, Lewis’ wife, Janet, was treated by Dr. S. for a gastrointestinal problem.
The Oanas and Solomons were dissatisfied with their treatment, questioning the diagnoses and finding inconsistencies in the billing. They discussed their experience with other passengers who had visited the ship’s sick bay. Yet another passenger did some online research on Dr. S. and discovered that his medical license issued by the State of Tennessee had been suspended by the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners in 2009; in a hearing in September 2010, this suspension had been upheld.
In light of this, 40 passengers signed a letter disputing the charges for their medical tests and treatment and had a representative present it to the ship’s captain and General Manager. There were several meetings between the group’s representative and the captain and General Manager. The ship presented a medical registration for Dr. S. that had been issued in Orissa, India, in 1979 but could not produce a more recently issued license.
Before the cruise was over, the cruise line reduced the amounts the passengers had been billed for medical tests and treatment. A couple of weeks after that, the cruise line refunded in full the balance of the medical charges the patients had been billed, crediting their credit card accounts, and informed them, “The doctor is no longer on board.” This was done just before ITN contacted the cruise line regarding the letters received from the two couples.
ITN then looked into how medical personnel are hired by cruise lines and discovered some interesting facts.
On many cruise ships, the crews are not hired by the cruise lines directly but are obtained through any of several recruitment agencies. This is the case with all ships’ physicians; each is an independent contractor and not an employee of the cruise line.
Although recruitment agencies’ job guidelines state that anyone applying to be a ship’s physician is required to have a current medical license, at this time there are no international regulations governing the medical staffs on cruise ships.
So, when booking a cruise, how can you be sure that a ship’s doctor is actually a doctor? You might ask or have your travel agent ask the cruise line for the name of the ship’s physician and the country or US state in which he or she is licensed. (It is common for ships to hire doctors licensed outside of the US, but it shouldn’t matter in which country a physician is licensed so long as he or she is licensed.)
If the line’s representative can give you the doctor’s name but does not or cannot tell you where he or she is licensed, you can try doing a Google search to find where he or she practices.
In most states in the US, physicians’ medical licenses can be checked on this website: www.doctorscorecard.com/license-lookup.htm.
Many countries, especially the developed nations, have online registries of licensed physicians. A search, using key words such as “United Kingdom medical registry,” will lead you to the appropriate website, if it exists.
Unfortunately, when ITN researched some of these sites, a few were found to be incomplete. For example, the Indian medical registry site www.mciindia.org listed only 50 licensed physicians in each state in India. Clearly, only a tiny fraction of their records are online at this time.
One thing to keep in mind — on board ship, cruise passengers always have the right to be told what all of their medical charges will be before they agree to any treatment. There should be a form with a breakdown of the tests and services and the charge for each. A prospective patient can ask to see this and should be given a copy of it after visiting the doctor. — DT
