“We go to the hospital every day and hold her hand”
Melanie Mansfield suffered from a stroke and a bleed on her brain on May 31(Image: Steven Mansfield)
A family has been left stranded in the Canary Islands after their daughter had a stroke. Melanie Mansfield, 43, from Ellesmere Port, was enjoying a holiday in Fuerteventura when her family noticed something was wrong.
Her parents Steven, 67, and Catherine Mansfield, 68, told the ECHO how they travelled with Jet2Holidays from Liverpool to Fuerteventura on May 30 with eight people to celebrate a couple of birthdays and relax for the week. They arrived at the resort in the evening and had a couple of drinks before they all went to sleep.
Steven said: “Melanie has Down’s syndrome but she is quite capable of looking after herself so on our first full day she was happy splashing around and playing in the pool. She then took herself off to the resort shop and after about 20 minutes she came back to the pool and started looking around as if she wasn’t sure where we were.
“We noticed when we called her she wasn’t responding and when my son went towards her he noticed that the right side of her mouth was dropping down so we were very concerned then.”
Steven said the resort’s medical staff phoned for an ambulance and after Melanie was taken to hospital they were told that she’d had a stroke and needed a medical evacuation to a bigger hospital in Gran Canaria. He said: “About two hours later she was in a helicopter on the way to Gran Canaria.
“The next day me and Catherine flew to Gran Canaria and the doctors confirmed Melanie also had a bleed on her brain. They said she’d have to have an operation to try and help her recovery and she’s been there ever since.
“For the first two or three days I could feel the anxiety in the pit of my stomach because we just didn’t know what was happening and obviously there is a language barrier between us and the hospital staff which makes it even harder. We’d spoken to about five different doctors over five days who all said different things so we got very confused.
“She was in a medically induced coma to start with and over the last couple of days they’ve started to wean her off the sedation to find out if she will wake up. They have told us she may never wake up but may is a big word so we don’t know.”
Melanie’s parents described her as “very outgoing” and said she was a keen Liverpool supporter and enjoyed art, music, films and singing in a choir in Ellesmere Port. Steven said: “We’ve said from the beginning that it’s up to the doctors and the insurance whether Melanie can fly back to the UK but we’re still here because while Melanie’s here we’re not going to leave her side.
“We go to the hospital every day and hold her hand, try to talk to her and play some of her favourite music. We’re just trying to do anything that could spark something to bring her around and help her recover.”
Melanie’s parents said she enjoyed being a part of a lot of clubs and activities in Ellesmere Port (Image: Steven Mansfield)
Catherine said: “We’re very tired. The bed in the apartment we’re currently in isn’t the best and we’re not sleeping well because we don’t know what’s going on and obviously we’re really worried about Melanie. We’re in the apartment all morning and then we go to the hospital and stay there for around six hours and then it’s back to the apartment to eat and sleep. That’s literally our life at the moment.”
Steven and Catherine have been in Gran Canaria since June 1 and said they’ve experienced issues which has further complicated their situation.
Steven said: “When everything happened we informed the insurance company and when they went through their protocol they found an anomaly in Melanie’s doctor’s notes from home. Obviously because of doctor-patient confidentiality they can’t tell us what it is and that means we are not entitled to any advance payments.
“We haven’t got any dispute with the insurance company but we’ve been told the insurance will only cover 97.2% of costs so we would have to cover the shortfall on Melanie’s medical evacuation back to the UK and they also said they will only reimburse costs for one parent even though both of us are staying at Melanie’s side.”
Melanie and her mum Catherine (Image: Steven Mansfield)
The couple said that they’ve funded everything themselves but when they give the receipts over to the insurance company they may potentially only get half of the costs reimbursed. Catherine said: “We’ve been told that because insurance isn’t covering 100% of the cost we will also have to pay a percentage of the medical evacuation fee to fly Melanie back to the UK which we’ve been told costs anywhere between £25,000 and £40,000 in total.
“Jet2 told us that because we didn’t fly to Gran Canaria for our holiday they can’t provide a flight back because we’re not on the island we were holidaying on. We paid for return flights from Fuerteventura when we booked the holiday and we’ve been told that we could still use them if we fly back to Fuerteventura but we’d have to pay a fine because it wouldn’t be the day we were supposed to fly back on.
“We’ve been talking over the last few years about retiring and putting some money aside. We made the decision earlier in the year that the end of October would be a nice time to retire and start to put our feet up and watch everyone grow up and live their lives. Obviously everything that has happened has put us on the back foot with our plans but we’ve just got to see what happens with Melanie.”
A spokesperson for Jet2 said: “We are very sorry to hear about Ms Mansfield and can confirm that our team is continuing to do all they can to support Mr Mansfield and his wife. This has included helping them to source accommodation and providing guidance on amending their return flight home. We always urge customers to take out appropriate travel insurance and have advised Mr Mansfield to speak to his travel insurance provider to recover any additional costs incurred.”
If you want to donate to Melanie and her family you can visit their GoFundMe page.