Alan Kirby’s family faced a £14,000 hospital bill and their insurance didn’t cover a £45,000 private medical flight home as his condition wasn’t known before their departure
A British tourist who was stuck in Greece on a ventilator after a holiday insurance mistake has died leaving his family facing a huge bill.
Car valeter Alan Kirby, 67, suffered a “septic” shock and passed away on Monday, his family confirmed. Alan had initially thought the pain in his side at dinner was from throwing his stepdaughter’s children around in the sea in Zante.
But when he woke up breathless he sought medical advice and doctors advised he return to the UK for a biopsy on a mass in his lung they feared might be cancer. However, before they could get home, Alan’s health deteriorated and he was put on a ventilator – prohibiting him from taking a commercial flight back to the UK – and he was airlifted to a private hospital in Athens.
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His devastated family had been raising money to cover the ambulance flight home and had been speaking out to make others aware of holiday insurance errors. But in a post on his GoFundMe site, his stepdaughter Liza Whitemore, 40, confirmed Alan sadly died. She posted: “We would like to thank all your support and donations over the last eight weeks.
“It comes with great sadness that Alan gained his wings in the night in Athens we will be heading out to Athens to have a cremation.” Hospital officials had called his insurance company, which disclosed Alan was aware of the mass – something he says British doctors deemed to be a benign fatty tissue, and told him not to worry about.
This made it a pre-existing medical condition, which he had not declared to insurers, invalidating his cover and landing the family with a £14,000 bill. He was left on a ventilator in a hospital covered by his Global Health Insurance Card, and was too unwell to fly home on a conventional flight, but didn’t have insurance to cover a £45,000 private medical flight home.
The total cost of the hospital bill and the medical flight would have been a total of £59,000 for the family to work out – but since Alan’s passing, the insurance said they would cover the £14,000 hospital bill. Alan, from Marston Magna, Somerset, was told he had a chest infection and suspected cancer after becoming unwell on a family holiday on Sunday, July 6.
After his transfer to a hospital in Athens, he was placed in a medically-induced coma which he never woke up from earlier this month. His family had raised £9,500 in hopes of being able to fly him back to the UK, but sadly did not reach the target goal before his passing. The money raised through the appeal will now go towards his cremation.
Liza, a private care assistant from Wincanton, Somerset, said Alan will be having a cremation in Athens this Saturday with family and friends invited to the local pub for a “live link” up. Liza had said previously: “We know we’ve made the mistake [with the insurance] – that’s the problem.
“My mum had gone into the bank that she had insurance with and they said, ‘just go on holiday, you don’t have to do anything.’ They didn’t know about the mass. And he was well before – he was working as a car valeter the day before the holiday. We’re just desperate to get him home.”
Alan was three days into his holiday with his partner Helen Whitemore, 62, Liza and her three daughters, when he fell ill on July 5. He looked “dreadful, grey and pale” during a family dinner in Tsilivi, so he went back to the hotel. “At dinner he had aching pain all down the right side of his torso,” said Liza.
“He thought it was from throwing my kids while playing in the sea earlier in the day.” He woke up breathless and went to a local clinic in the morning, and after extensive testing was sent to a local hospital.
The couple say they thought he had a chest infection and needed antibiotics. “But the doctor, who must have had the clinic’s test results, said, ‘antibiotics won’t cure cancer’,” said Liza. “Everyone was petrified, nobody knew what was going on.
“After five hours, they told my mum she needed to go back to England for a biopsy, because they couldn’t tell from the X-ray if Alan had cancer.” The hospital had spotted a mass in Alan’s right lung, which he was already aware of, but says British doctors had told him was a benign fatty tissue mass in December 2024.
Lisa added: “The insurance didn’t know about it.” Two days later Alan was “fitting” in his hospital bed, disoriented and dehydrated with oxygen levels of only 36%. “They put him on a non-invasive ventilator and there was talk that night of putting him in a coma but then they said he might not come round because of his lungs,” said Liza.
The insurance company agreed to fly Alan to a private hospital in Athens via a helicopter ambulance. He couldn’t fly to the UK because it was too long a flight and he needed to remain on a ventilator. But when Alan arrived in Athens, the insurance company contacted Lisa to say they were checking Alan’s pre-existing conditions.
The checks took five days and the insurance company requested Alan’s UK GP records, through which they discovered Alan’s “pre-existing condition” – the mass in his lung. The insurance company then told Alan’s family they will pay for Alan’s care up until the checks began – five days of private hospital care costing £14,000.
Alan was moved to Athens’ General Hospital where his care was covered by his GHIC card. The family had wanted to raise £45,000 appeal to bring him home via air ambulance.