Ummm - Guys and girls - I could use a little advice here. Please?
Evertonian
Thought provoking thread with timely reminders for us all I suppose.
Ah well. Cest la vie! Lets hope she gets back alright. Keep us informed Loco Bloko.
Ah well. Cest la vie! Lets hope she gets back alright. Keep us informed Loco Bloko.
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I will Buster.
Last info is that she will be at least 2 more weeks being stabilised, and then will fly with a doc back to SYD.
Maybe this will in a backhanded sort of way improve things for her in the longer term. We can only hope. She deserves better.
There is indeed a fine line between brilliance and lunacy and I feel we tread it most of our lives. The distance between the two states is very very finite.
Bushie - Please be very aware that I have taken no offense to any of your comments at any time. I called for debate, got it - robust and otherwise and indeed welcomed it. That is exactly why I posted. I find nothing you said unreasonable and you at no time denegrated my position in the "Travel community" or tried to bring me or my operation into disrepute. Thanks mate - you have helped me get a handle on this with a lot of our mutual friends. In turn, I appreciate greatly the comments made by Woomera, and value his friendship,wisdom and counsel highly.
PPruNe is the best sounding board I know of, and I am very glad that it is here and all of us are able to use it.
Best all
EWL
Last info is that she will be at least 2 more weeks being stabilised, and then will fly with a doc back to SYD.
Maybe this will in a backhanded sort of way improve things for her in the longer term. We can only hope. She deserves better.
There is indeed a fine line between brilliance and lunacy and I feel we tread it most of our lives. The distance between the two states is very very finite.
Bushie - Please be very aware that I have taken no offense to any of your comments at any time. I called for debate, got it - robust and otherwise and indeed welcomed it. That is exactly why I posted. I find nothing you said unreasonable and you at no time denegrated my position in the "Travel community" or tried to bring me or my operation into disrepute. Thanks mate - you have helped me get a handle on this with a lot of our mutual friends. In turn, I appreciate greatly the comments made by Woomera, and value his friendship,wisdom and counsel highly.
PPruNe is the best sounding board I know of, and I am very glad that it is here and all of us are able to use it.
Best all
EWL
I realise that this thread has virtully come to close but, we get walk ins whom we know nothing about who demand to go to some strange places domestically. I feel we cannot refuse to service them in the manner they desire, particularly when we do not know anything about them. We have a couple of locals that we are wary of though.
EWL there but for the grace of God go quite a few of us, i think.
EWL there but for the grace of God go quite a few of us, i think.
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Yup 185
Do you report the guy with tatts and a leather jacket who books full Y at the last second and is in Darwin for 3 hours (This has actually happened to us) QF in and AN out?
So obviously a drug deal, but then so obviously paying for a car he was buying, seeing mum for her 80th, attending the reading of a will of a dearly departed etc etc.
One of may no-win situations I dare say all of us have and will face.
Beer isn't the answer, but it is a bloody good substitute until we find one.
Best regards
EWL
Do you report the guy with tatts and a leather jacket who books full Y at the last second and is in Darwin for 3 hours (This has actually happened to us) QF in and AN out?
So obviously a drug deal, but then so obviously paying for a car he was buying, seeing mum for her 80th, attending the reading of a will of a dearly departed etc etc.
One of may no-win situations I dare say all of us have and will face.
Beer isn't the answer, but it is a bloody good substitute until we find one.
Best regards
EWL
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Just an update as promised.
Our wayward lady is on the mend in China. Will be returning to Australia on Friday next week on China Air accompanied by a Doctor.
It would appear that despite medication prescribed in Australia, her condition had deteriorated to a dangerous level that was not detected, and she is responding well to a revised regime of medication which is more appropriate.
Maybe - just maybe - what will be salvaged out of this debacle is a life for one poor lost soul.
She will be staying on the North Island in Hospital and then rels for a short time, and then be returning home.
It really does come to something when you have to go to China to be noticed and treated.
Hopefully this sequence of events will actually help her life after all.
Maybe she is indeed more intelligent than the sum of us and the system.
Best all
EWL
Our wayward lady is on the mend in China. Will be returning to Australia on Friday next week on China Air accompanied by a Doctor.
It would appear that despite medication prescribed in Australia, her condition had deteriorated to a dangerous level that was not detected, and she is responding well to a revised regime of medication which is more appropriate.
Maybe - just maybe - what will be salvaged out of this debacle is a life for one poor lost soul.
She will be staying on the North Island in Hospital and then rels for a short time, and then be returning home.
It really does come to something when you have to go to China to be noticed and treated.
Hopefully this sequence of events will actually help her life after all.
Maybe she is indeed more intelligent than the sum of us and the system.
Best all
EWL
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Yes Amos, but organised from the other end.The SQ ticket was useable but not acceptable to the authorities up there.
If anything, the mainland Chinese are too cautious rather than reckless.
Best regards
EWL
If anything, the mainland Chinese are too cautious rather than reckless.
Best regards
EWL
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I am pleased to say that our wayward passenger is safely back in Australia.
Hopefully now the "system" will attempt to give her the care she needs.
Thank you all for your input - pro and con.
Out of interest, if I strike a case like this again, I will find some way not to uplift. It isn't worth the lost sleep, heartache for family or the situation it potentially puts the passenger in.
Thanks all and best regards
EWL
Hopefully now the "system" will attempt to give her the care she needs.
Thank you all for your input - pro and con.
Out of interest, if I strike a case like this again, I will find some way not to uplift. It isn't worth the lost sleep, heartache for family or the situation it potentially puts the passenger in.
Thanks all and best regards
EWL
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EWL,
I know that this thread is drawing to its own natural conclusion, but I thought I would just add my two cents worth. Personally, I missed the ealrier entries at the time that you first posted.
I can speak from personal experience of the difficulties of caring for a family member with a lifelong significant disability. It is a draining, frustrating, maddening, scary and unrelenting existence. It is however, also at times joyous, deeply moving and highly rewarding. You never quite view the world the same way ever again. My biggest worry is how this family member will cope when I succumb to the inevtiable - as we all must.
Working out what action is in the best interests of your family member (or in your case, your customer) is a real tightrope. From a legal standpoint, I doubt whether there is even a legal process for the situation you found yourself in - I would love somebody with legal experience to add their comments on this point.
In today's world, we must forever tread the line between privacy and duty of care requirements. I recently operated a service ex Darwin for Singapore with a passenger who had a pre-existing medical condition. The CSM really did not want to take her, but when asked, the passenger informed the CSM that QF medical had cleared her to fly. From the privacy point of view, she was not required to tell us her condition and QF medical could not have disclosed it to us if we had asked them (unless they had her approval of course).
If something had happended to her on that flight, who would the authorities have held legally responsible? The passenger for travelling with a condition and not informing the crew of the full details? The CSM for allowing her to board against his gut instinct? The QF doctor for giving her a company medical clearance to fly? Or the crew for failing in their duty of care? I guess the legal eagles would have had a windfall in legal fees before a determination was made.
To come back to your situation EWL. In the situation you initially described, who should you have been most concerned about? The right of the passenger to privacy regarding her condition, but also the right to travel as a free individual? Or what about your duty of care to the other passengers? You asked about what legal avenues were open to you? I personally doubt that there is one and that you, yourself, would have had a pschiatric condition by the time you finished negotiating a way through the myriad government departments (state and federal) to try to get a definitive answer.
Governments at all levels avoid providing adequate levels of mental health care. It is easier (and far cheaper) to say that they have a right to individual freedoms and should be able to move freely in the community. Not that I am advocating that people should be institutionalised mandatorally - far from it in fact!! My point is that if they live in society, they must be adequately supported - and this is where all governments are failing these fragile mmembers of society (and obviously your client).
IMHO, in this particular situation, it would pay to take a lateral approach. Given the absence of hard guidelines to cover this situation, I would have "invented" a requirement to have a nominated contact person - presumably in this case, the lady's daughter - use your imagination as to why such a requirement might exist. I then would have called this "contact person" on some pretext - confirmation of flight number or some other mundane reason. I imagine the daughter's response would have been, "MY MOTHER'S FLIGHT TO CHINA????!!!???!!!"
While this approach might not be strictly in compliance with all of the privacy/EO/OH&S/Duty of care requirements, it probably would have gotten you off the hook.
This is not intended as a criticism - merely as food for thought. I congratulate you for treating the lady with compassion and respect in a world where we are all too quick to look down on those who do not fit the image of perfection that is forced on us by the mass media.
My apologies for the length of my reply.
Best regards.
I know that this thread is drawing to its own natural conclusion, but I thought I would just add my two cents worth. Personally, I missed the ealrier entries at the time that you first posted.
I can speak from personal experience of the difficulties of caring for a family member with a lifelong significant disability. It is a draining, frustrating, maddening, scary and unrelenting existence. It is however, also at times joyous, deeply moving and highly rewarding. You never quite view the world the same way ever again. My biggest worry is how this family member will cope when I succumb to the inevtiable - as we all must.
Working out what action is in the best interests of your family member (or in your case, your customer) is a real tightrope. From a legal standpoint, I doubt whether there is even a legal process for the situation you found yourself in - I would love somebody with legal experience to add their comments on this point.
In today's world, we must forever tread the line between privacy and duty of care requirements. I recently operated a service ex Darwin for Singapore with a passenger who had a pre-existing medical condition. The CSM really did not want to take her, but when asked, the passenger informed the CSM that QF medical had cleared her to fly. From the privacy point of view, she was not required to tell us her condition and QF medical could not have disclosed it to us if we had asked them (unless they had her approval of course).
If something had happended to her on that flight, who would the authorities have held legally responsible? The passenger for travelling with a condition and not informing the crew of the full details? The CSM for allowing her to board against his gut instinct? The QF doctor for giving her a company medical clearance to fly? Or the crew for failing in their duty of care? I guess the legal eagles would have had a windfall in legal fees before a determination was made.
To come back to your situation EWL. In the situation you initially described, who should you have been most concerned about? The right of the passenger to privacy regarding her condition, but also the right to travel as a free individual? Or what about your duty of care to the other passengers? You asked about what legal avenues were open to you? I personally doubt that there is one and that you, yourself, would have had a pschiatric condition by the time you finished negotiating a way through the myriad government departments (state and federal) to try to get a definitive answer.
Governments at all levels avoid providing adequate levels of mental health care. It is easier (and far cheaper) to say that they have a right to individual freedoms and should be able to move freely in the community. Not that I am advocating that people should be institutionalised mandatorally - far from it in fact!! My point is that if they live in society, they must be adequately supported - and this is where all governments are failing these fragile mmembers of society (and obviously your client).
IMHO, in this particular situation, it would pay to take a lateral approach. Given the absence of hard guidelines to cover this situation, I would have "invented" a requirement to have a nominated contact person - presumably in this case, the lady's daughter - use your imagination as to why such a requirement might exist. I then would have called this "contact person" on some pretext - confirmation of flight number or some other mundane reason. I imagine the daughter's response would have been, "MY MOTHER'S FLIGHT TO CHINA????!!!???!!!"
While this approach might not be strictly in compliance with all of the privacy/EO/OH&S/Duty of care requirements, it probably would have gotten you off the hook.
This is not intended as a criticism - merely as food for thought. I congratulate you for treating the lady with compassion and respect in a world where we are all too quick to look down on those who do not fit the image of perfection that is forced on us by the mass media.
My apologies for the length of my reply.
Best regards.
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Three Bars
A very good and sensitive summation of a thread that has run it's course.
If I was aware of the numbers of family, or could have extracted them, it would have been otherwise - or maybe it wouldn't have been.
The main thing is that she is back in one piece, and is at least temporarily in care.
I just bloody wish we all had the answers here.
Thanks mate
EWL
A very good and sensitive summation of a thread that has run it's course.
If I was aware of the numbers of family, or could have extracted them, it would have been otherwise - or maybe it wouldn't have been.
The main thing is that she is back in one piece, and is at least temporarily in care.
I just bloody wish we all had the answers here.
Thanks mate
EWL
