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  • February 18, 2025
British grandmother who caught COVID stranded in Orlando hospital

British grandmother who caught COVID stranded in Orlando hospital

The holiday was a last chance to make memories.

Patricia Bunting, 76, knew her declining health would soon mean she would no longer be able to travel to the United States, her “happy place.” She uses three different inhalers to relieve breathing difficulties caused by chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. She depends on a walker to get around.

But she had saved for two years to see her grandson enjoy Walt Disney World again. She made the ten-hour trip with him and two of her sons on October 31.

Bunting had taken out travel insurance for all her twenty previous trips to America. This time, she couldn’t afford the $3,000 fee.

On November 23, five days before her scheduled flight home, she complained of exhaustion. One of her sons later found her unconscious in the bathroom. She was rushed to Orlando Health Dr. P. Phillips Hospital.

Bunting spent five days in intensive care with COVID-19 and later pneumonia. She refused intubation for fear that she would never wake up. After 17 days in the hospital, she remains in intensive care. She is given oxygen and heavy medication, leaving her family concerned that she will never return home.

And with each passing day, her medical bills increase.

Her story illustrates how the “staggering” costs of health care in the United States, tourists who do not purchase insurance can be financially devastated and experience medical emergencies. Average U.S. health care spending in 2022 was $12,555 per person, more than $4,000 more than any other high-income country, according to an analysis by Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF.

Bunting’s children want to fly her home, where her treatment would be free under the country’s National Health Service. But she is too ill to undertake the long flight without medical care. She would need a bed, oxygen and medical attention on the plane, which would cost nearly $30,000, according to an air ambulance provider the family contacted.

It’s much more than they can afford, said daughter Emma Bunting, who flew to Orlando on Saturday to be with her mother.

“She is afraid of dying in an American hospital, far from her family,” said Emma Bunting. “I want nothing more than to have my mother home for Christmas so she can be surrounded by all the love from her family.”

Her family matriarch, Bunting, lives in Wigan, about 22 miles from Manchester. She has been widowed since 1993 and has three sons, a daughter and two grandchildren. She has never been dependent on government support and lives on the pension she paid into during her working life and on what she receives from her husband’s pension, her daughter says.

Patricia Bunting contracted COVID-19 while vacationing in Orlando. She spent five days in the intensive care unit at Orlando Health Dr. P Phillips Hospital.
Patricia Bunting contracted COVID-19 while vacationing in Orlando. She spent five days in the intensive care unit at Orlando Health Dr. P Phillips Hospital. (Bunting family)

The family has sought help from the British embassy in Miami, but said officials there had only asked how they were going to pay their mother’s mounting medical bills. The embassy did not return a call from the Tampa Bay Times requesting comment.

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The hospital helped the family with low-cost housing in a pavilion on campus.

“I’m worried,” said Emma Bunting about the cost of treatment in the US. “I don’t know how much this will cost, but I know she needs this care.”

Websites that offer travel insurance for visitors to the United States warn visitors of the risk of medical emergencies.

Surgery to remove an appendix would cost $13,000 in the US, more than double that in Switzerland, the second most expensive, according to a 2022 study. analysis from the International Federation of Health Plans and the Health Care Cost Institute, which compared international prices for medical treatments in eleven countries.

Emergencies like a heart attack that require surgery can cost up to $200,000, according to the U.S. government details of travel insurer VisitorsCoverage.

Patricia Bunting took photographs before she became infected with COVID-19 while on holiday in Orlando.
Patricia Bunting took photographs before she became infected with COVID-19 while on holiday in Orlando. (Bunting family)

Do you want to help?

Patricia Bunting’s children started with one gofundme page to raise money to cover the costs of flying their mother to the UK for specialist medical care.