British mum stuck in Kenya with organ failure after simple mistake on insurance form
A British woman with liver failure is stranded in Kenya because her insurance won’t cover the £80,000 bills.
Lee Flint, 77, flew to the east African country in September to celebrate her husband Jack being cancer-free. But she was keeping a secret.
Unbeknownst to Jack, Lee was getting sick and had had blood tests run back home.
That was until he found her unresponsive in bed a few weeks into their trip and rushed her to intensive care.
‘She has kidney and liver failure so her organs are shutting down’, her son Jamie, from Addlestone, Surrey, said.
‘I know she’s got an internal bleed. She had blood poisoning and that’s what was causing her to fall in and out of consciousness.’
They had hoped Lee would soon be coming home, but an error on their holiday insurance forms mean they can’t afford to flights or hospital bills.
Lee had been so keen to avoid worrying Jack as he finished chemotherapy, she simply didn’t tell him about her health concerns or tests.
When Jack was filling out the forms, he didn’t mention Lee had any pre-existing condition, voiding her insurance, MailOnline reports.
It’s not clear whether Lee knew the results of her tests, given she currently cannot speak.
James said: ‘My mum and dad did the question wrong over the phone or the laptop but my dad had just been really poorly with his chemo, my mum had been exhausted. She is a clever lady but she made a mistake.’
That mistake has cost her dearly. Lee and Jack have spent months at a time in Watamu, where they sponsor schools and doctors, since 1991.
On their latest trip, they came armed with 62kg of clothes and reading glasses to give to schoolkids and orphans.
But now the family has launched a GoFundMe campaign to cover the £80,000 cost of flying Lee home, and the thousands more owed in medical bills.
Feeling ‘completely helpless… stuck in England’, James warned others: ‘Be absolutely thorough when you do something like this, go over and over it again if you’re elderly or have any past history of being poorly.
‘You’ve got to do it and you do feel a bit of anger during these companies, they are what they are, you have to do these things correctly.
‘I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone else. All I want is for my mum to come home but the hospital bills are extortionately high.
‘I am absolutely humbled by the people, I’m not great with social media but I feel completely humbled and blessed, it makes me almost cry when I think about it.’
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