Has anyone experienced a medical emergency while on a cruise?

Yes I have experienced a medical emergency.

First, several years ago a passenger had a heart attack on ship and the ship had to make an unscheduled stop for the passenger to be dropped off at an island where he was picked up by a helicopter.

A few years ago I went to the medical unit because I had a persistent cough that would not go away. The ship had a doctor and a couple nurses in a facility that was quite like visiting about any doctor's office on land. They had beds and basic examination and treatment equipment. About enough to treat and stabilized any passenger injury. They can take care of cuts, abrasions, bumps and bruises as well as stomach and other ailments. They can stabilize a heart attack patient but for serious stuff they do have to seek a port or a medical evacuation. They have a pharmacy and can prescribe many things. And I know the prescriptions are expensive; mine was.

A single person or a lot of people? If it gets to a certain degree they go into port. My aunt and uncles first and only cruise was to Hawaii. Nearly everyone got food poisoning one night. They went into port, got extra staff on board to help the guests. I guess they called for more health professionals too. Meanwhile the staff evacuated floor by floor so they could do a thorough cleaning of every room. It ended up taking a couple days off the cruise so two islands were cut. They refunded a lot of the money (though I dont remember what percentage).

I've also been on a cruise where a man with a heart condition had a problem. We were about one day out of Miami so they called out the Coast Guard heliocopter to airlift the older gentleman back to Miami.

Cruise ships are prepared to handle many emergencies but the staff on hand does not have full medical equipment of a major hospital. They are not afraid to send you back to the US for a real hospital. Though I know that all the staff of Carnival is CPR trained and that they have numerous AEDs on board as you have to be able to get to it and back in 4 minutes. So more than likely, they have 2 or 3 per floor on the larger ships.

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Basic medical is provided by onboard Doctor and nurse. If you are booking I would recomend cruise insurance that also covers emergancy transportation off the ship. My son got an ear infection on board Carnival and the Doctor was very good.

My husband forgot his medication and so as soon as we got on the ship we went to medical. The ship was not sailing until 10pm, so we had plenty of time. They wrote a prescription for him and even took us to a Pharmacy and back to the ship. That was so nice and easy to handle. It was in Australia and on Princess cruise lines. That kind of service says a lot about Princess and we always cruise with them. By the way people die on cruises, usually because of old age or heart attacks, but when you realize a ship has over 3,000 people, then things like that are expected.

When I worked on a ship for Royal Caribbean we had a couple of them from time to time.

There are doctors and nurses onboard the ship. Usually like one doctor and two or three nurses.

They have basic life-saving equipment, but if they are not in port, the coast guard can usually be there in like an hour or so to do an airlift. So you are never really that far away from medical assistance.

They also have a mortuary on-board too.

I dislocated my shoulder while aboard a Celebrity ship. The medical staff treated it at their ship's hospital. There is a charge for the service, of course, but it was all picked up by my health insurance.

Each cruise line has different medical services, and may accomodate any problem that you have, if you let them know ahead of time. I know that Holland America WILL have a dialysis machine made available, if you need it (we asked, for a friend of ours).....

If I did I'd hope Sally B was the nurse and hopefully I'd require mouth-to-mouth :^)

Please don't get mad Sally, as always you rock!