A Perth woman trapped on the other side of the world after her flight was cancelled at the 11th hour says the experience has made her value the NHS even more.
Helen Robertson flew out to New Zealand on March 2 to visit friends but has been unable to return home as the coronavirus situation escalated.
The 54-year-old was in an airport hotel in Auckland ahead of her flight home on Monday when she received an email in the middle of the night telling her it was cancelled.
She now faces an anxious wait to see if she can gain a place on a Singapore Airlines plane flying out of the country at the weekend.
She said: “We never thought that we wouldn’t get home in time or that things would escalate as badly as they have.
“We were due to fly out with Emirates on Monday afternoon and they had made it clear that as long as we were out by the 25th it would be ok, and we were within that deadline.
“But then they emailed me 12 hours before our flight – they emailed in what was the middle of the night here. I’d been restless so got up to check my email – at first I thought it was a joke.”
With the Emirates desk closed at the airport, Helen checked in with the British Embassy in Auckland. She has since returned to her friend’s home in Whakatane, four hours’ drive south of the city, where she is now in quarantine.
Despite having travel insurance, she has been forced to pay out of her own pocket for the medications she relies on as she had started to run low.
She said: “I’m running out of the medication I take every day so I went to the doctors here. You really appreciate the NHS and its prescription services when you have to pay our a few hundred dollars for an appointment and prescription just to keep you going.
“I feel in some ways we could be safer staying in New Zealand (for now) but all our friends and family are back home, even if you can’t see them at the moment. You don’t want to die in a foreign country with your family back home.
“For medical care things are ok here but I think over here I’m a foreigner – am I going to be pushed to the back of the queue if I need treatment? Things might not be great back home but at least we have the NHS.”
