Sunday, November 27, 2005
Food poisoning
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Roslyn Elliott <cindyroz1@yahoo.com.au>
Date: Nov 26, 2005 8:28 PM
Subject: Food poisoning
To: jawad@alumni.washington.edu
We too would like to get our hands on an email address to send our
complaint. Seeing as faxing has gotten us no reply. We live in Sydney
but Emirates cusomer affairs dept is in Melbourne. We were given a
name and number to contact, which we did. 10 days had passed without
any sort of a response. We rang again and was given a different fax
number to try, which we did. Another week passed and still no reply.
This time when I called I was given a different number yet again. So
we sent it off again thinking third time lucky. Finally we get a phone
call from Melbourne saying that they had received our letter and they
had forwarded it on to their head office in Dubai. It has now been 4
weeks since first contacting Emirates and we are still waiting. Now
for our ordeal.
First I'd like to set the scene. My partner was separated from her
mother when she was 2 years old. She had spent the past 25 years
searching for her. Just when ! she was about to give up we found her
in England. Only to find out that she too had spent the last 43 years
looking and was about to give up also. So you can imagine how excited
everyone was. She now has 3 new brothers plus nieces and nephews who
couldn't wait to meet us. We found her early in August and were on our
way on the 24th September.
We left Sydney travelling to Manchester via Dubai. Travelling Economy
on the airbus was very cramped and uncomfotable, consequently we stood
and walked around for most of the flight. We had excellent service on
our 14+ hour flight to Dubai, but the food left a lot to be desired!
My partner was served but I had to wait. She had finished her chicken
meal by the time I received mine. She commented that she didn't think
much of the food. I had one taste of the chicken and couldn't eat it,
nor anything else for that matter.We had not quite 2 hrs stopover in
Dubai and we ate nothing there. Nor did we use the ! toilets they were
so disgusting.
Time to board for Manchester and when we get to the gate we are told
we have to go all the way to the other end of the airport. Once there
the queue was a mile long snake with no-one helping to keep it
orderly. It took nearly an hour to get on board. Then we were
subjected to a 2 hr delay before we could take off. At first we were
told nothing. Then they started calling for certain passengers to get
off. Eventually after many passengers started getting extremely
agitated we were informed of what was happening. Someone's luggage was
on board but they were nowhere to be found. This person was part of a
group and the others had to identify their luggage so his could be
taken off. Hopefully they got it right and that some poor person isn't
still looking for their luggage.
Shortly after take-off my partner started vomiting. Her vomiting
progressively worsened and she developed a seve! re headache. Staff
having done what they could and seeing that she was still
deteriorating, asked if there was a doctor on board. Luckily there
was. The doctor believed she had food poisoning and inserted a canula
in her hand to get medication into her as quick as possible. And all
this was happening in the worst possible place. I had asked if she
could lie down somewhere so she could be a bit more comfortable. But
being laid down on a hard plastic fold down seat at the rear of the
plane, in the galley area where the lights are bright. And where
people were gathering, coming and going she had no privacy or dignity
at all. That is not what we call "being made comfortable". The doctor
was lovely and he did what he could but she was still extremely ill.
He asked that she be moved to somewhere more comfortable. Eventually
they moved her to the back of business class where she could lay down
with some privacy.
Someone on the crew, ! or the doctor, obviously thought that she was
that seriously ill because we had Paramedics waiting for us when we
got off the plane. The Paramedics were semi helpful, in that they also
believed my partner was suffering from a bad case of food poisoning,
and advised us to get to a hospital. We were left standing on the curb
outside the airport to do for ourselves. After checking into a motel
she was now vomiting up nothing but blood. I organised to get her to
the nearest hospital. They treated her so we could get to our final
destination in Huddersfield. Unfortunately what they did was not
enough and 2 days later she was back to hospital. We spent our entire
2 week holiday going back and forth between doctor surgeries and the
hospital. She ended up having to be admited to hospital for a few
days. She was released the day we were due to fly home but we were
unable to come home. We were advised by the doctors and the airline
that it would be dangerous for her to fly an! d that she would not be
given clearance for at least a further 5 days.
In the meantime we had to organise extra leave from our jobs and a
flight home. We had to incur a lot of added expenses and family
members were inconvenienced. What was supposed to be a wonderful
experience turned out to be an absolute nightmare! And we are yet to
hear anything from this so- called wonderful airline. We intend to
travel regularly to England but unless we get some satisfaction from
Emirates there is no way we will use this airline again nor recommend
them to anyone!
Hopefully you have an email addres! s we can contact because we
begrudge spending any more money involving this airline. They owe us
something at least!!
Yours sincerely Roslyn Elliott
