A woman and her influencer boyfriend have had the holiday from hell after he had to go to A&E and racked up medical bills over £3,000.
To top things off, the trip coincided with poor Bartek’s birthday.
Bea Martinho, who posts under the username @kybetravel on TikTok, and her partner Bartek, were jetting off to Barbados on a free holiday to mark the special occasion.
Bartek, an influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers, was invited on the paid-for trip by PRs.
Though the pair say they did have some travel insurance, apparently it did not cover the expenses they racked up, which totalled more than £3,400.
The journey started smoothly enough, with clips posted by Bea detailing how they ‘said goodbye to rainy London and got on a plane’, were greeted with ‘the strongest rum punch’ Bea had ever had at the accommodation, and ‘taken to a room bigger than my flat in London’.
But things started to go wrong on night one, when Bartek developed some ‘severe stomach pain’ that neither tea nor Pepto-Bismol was helping, so the couple went to hospital to get him checked out.
They spent a sleepless night there before day two of the trip started with a journey to the closest doctor’s clinic. There, they paid £200 for a blood test, and medics told them they suspected Bartek had appendicitis.
After that, he was taken to urgent care where they had to pay £650 for a CT scan that not only showed the appendicitis but that he also had kidney stones and an old hip fracture from a fall he had years ago.
They were then transferred to A&E, by which point it was 11am, and they had an eight-hour wait before they were seen.
Bea said: ‘They did come round to give everyone a little goodie bag which was cute, but Bartek wasn’t allowed to eat or drink, so I stole his juice box.’
When he finally did get seen, the procedure and room for the night set the couple back a further £2,642 – they paid for a private room, so Bea could stay the night with him.
Day three was spent prepping for the surgery, which finally happened at around 1pm, and Bartek was brought back to the room just two hours before he officially turned 27 – what a way to mark a birthday.
By day four, it was clear Bartek had charmed the staff there, who were filmed serenading him for his birthday and giving him a gift basket of flowers and food.
‘The nurses absolutely loved this white man more than I do,’ Bea said in the last clip telling the story of their trip, ‘and made sure he knew he was their favourite.
‘I’m pretty sure there was some flirting going on every time I left the room.’
Even with all the stress, Bea praised the local healthcare system in comments under her posts, with one reading: ‘We’ve been treated with nothing but kindness here! Very grateful.’
Finally, Bartek was discharged on the promise that he wouldn’t ruin his stitches before his check-up in a few days’ time.
The couple were able to go back to their hotel at last, take ‘the longest shower ever’, and ‘fight the exhaustion’ to enjoy a birthday meal.
‘We were both asleep by 8pm,’ Bea concluded.
In total, the whole medical ordeal cost the pair £3,492.
In a later comment, when asked about the costs, Bea said: ‘Our insurance covers Barbados, it just didn’t cover this particular surgery because of several things.’
The four clips Bea posted telling the whole tale have earned hundreds of comments, tens of thousands of likes, and over a million views between them.
One person commented: ‘How terrifying, I panic about getting surgery in my own country let alone abroad.’
Another wrote: ‘This is so cute, bless the nurses. I’m glad he’s feeling much better.’
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