Is there a doctor in the house?

[Ramrod]

From todays Times

January 01, 2004

Is there a doctor on board? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
By Oliver Wright, Health Correspondent







WHEN Dorothy Fletcher collapsed from a heart attack on a flight to Orlando she might have expected the usual retired surgeon, liver specialist or New Age healer to come to her aid.

Instead, when the cabin crew put out a call for a doctor to help her, 15 cardiologists immediately pressed their call bells. In the end, Mrs Fletcher, 67, who was on her way to her daughter’s wedding, made do with four. One gave her oxygen, another set up a drip to thin her blood, while two others monitored her blood pressure and pulse. A fifth told the captain to divert the aircraft.

Mrs Fletcher described her good fortune yesterday and thanked the doctors who had saved her life. “You might have expected one doctor, but 15 cardiologists? That was extraordinary,� she said. “I can’t thank them enough.�

She felt ill while changing planes at Philadelphia after the flight from London but her condition deteriorated when the flight took off. “I was travelling with my daughter, Christine, and her fiancé but didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to worry them or miss the wedding,� she said. “It was only after the plane took off that I realised something was seriously wrong.�

Her daughter alerted the cabin crew, who put out a call for a doctor. Fifteen cardiologists on their way to an American Heart Association meeting in Orlando responded. “Suddenly all these call lights came on,� Mrs Fletcher said. “My daughter says there were 15 doctors around me. I remember one of them said, ‘I think we’re losing her’.�

On the advice of the doctors the pilot diverted the plane to Charlotte, North Carolina. She stayed in hospital there for four days receiving treatment before she was given permission to continue her trip.

Mrs Fletcher is now back in Britain but has been less lucky with British hospitals. “I may have had 15 cardiologists on the plane but I’ve been told it will be three months before I can see one here,� she said.

Don't know about the last paragraph though........