On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise (1996) [pdf]

http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf

by jonnathanson • 13 years ago

56 22 13 years ago

rdl• 13 years ago

I am currently re-reading (well, I skipped a lot of it she. I first read it) Infinite Jest. It is even sadder and more screwed up now that dfw is gone.

DonGateley• 13 years ago

He sure presages his fate in Infinite Jest. A tragic figure for sure and without peer as a writer/philosopher. I'm 70 and widely read and over those years no author has impacted me like he has (despite his propensity toward shaggy dogs.)

He clearly told us in advance that depression such as his was not to be suffered and when all was said and done he left me sympathetic with that point of view.

increment_i• 13 years ago

A classic essay. Consider The Lobster is another great one as well: http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...

pyalot2• 13 years ago

Not mentioned in that story, but relevant.

Modern cruise ships for the most part are equipped with medical facilities and staff of high standard, certainly higher than most destinations they set out for. It's mainly because that's regulation.

If a passanger falls seriously ill however, those facilities are merely the temporary means to keep you alive until the cruise ship arrives at the nearest port where it leaves you in the capable hands of local healthcare.

As it turns out, most of the time it means they kick you out of the ship to die. Because local healthcare of the garden variety is for the most part not capable of keeping a patient alive, unlike the shipborne medical facilities.

If you have the particular misfortune to be befallen of some sickness that looks anything like it could infect fellow passengers, no matter if serious or not, you might also be entirely on your own. Because things like quarantine facilities are not regulation. Because decontaminating a room is expensive, you'll likely spend the duration to the next port in a bare cell that's easy to disinfect afterwards. Should you die in there, they'll make it look like they cared for you, and if not, well they acted by the book.

The reason this macabre theatre happens is because of this. Should a passanger die on your ship, it's a huge headache for the cruise operator involving inspections, tons of paperwork, possibly a being forced to stay in port, missing a schedule and so forth. But if you can shuffle a passenger off to die somewhere else, it's no longer your problem.

There is just one thing worse for the cruise operator than having somebody die on his ship. It would be for multiple people to die, or many to fall sick, for which the hassle would be exponentially worse than a single dead passanger.

Elrac• 13 years ago

Thank you for this sobering reminder about the lethal reality of "ostentatious feel-good meets cold Capitalism!" Sadly, what you say is not surprising and I have no reason to doubt it.

But while in the second paragraph I was reminded of something completely different, and briefly thought that this is what you were going to tell us about:

A recent Internet news item claimed that living out one's days on a cruise ship was a cheaper alternative to living in a retirement home. No really, this is not just some fluff, apparently there was a study in 2004 by geriatricists Lindquist and Golub where they speculated on this, which people can Google at their convenience. Cecil from _The Straight Dope_ takes a more skeptical view in this article: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3056/is-a-cruise-sh... .

But, well, I think it's a fun idea to consider.

pavlov• 13 years ago

Perhaps not all that different from American health care in general?

While someone is footing the bill, they'll work hard to keep you alive -- and also make sure it involves expensive work like tests and x-ray imaging for maximum billing.

If you have the misfortune of suffering something that is not covered or is not profitable for some reason, they'll figure out a way to kick you out to die elsewhere.

The interests of the corporations that run cruise ships and American hospitals are fundamentally the same.

telephonetemp• 13 years ago

That sounds like an outline for a problem that should be happen across all service industries that are run privately/paid by insurance companies, not just healthcare. Do we hear more about it in (American) healthcare simply because it's something the most people interact with or is it noticeably worse there? For the record, I am not American and don't know what it is like to interact personally with US healthcare.

refurb3• 13 years ago

That's entirely not true.

Please provide an example of an American who was denied life saving treatment because they did not have insurance.

If it is a medical emergency, hospital are required to treat you, regardless of insurance status. Also, there are plenty of disproportionate share hospitals that treat the uninsured.

theorique• 13 years ago

I assume that cruise ship passengers are generally aware of this and purchase med-evac insurance so that they get helo'ed and / or jetted to (e.g.) top hospitals in Houston or Miami rather than (e.g.) Port-au-Prince.

Or do passengers run into this as a regular problem?

riffraff2• 13 years ago

why is this [scribd] ?

The url looks like

http://harpers.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/HarpersMagazin...

does it mean this was somehow produced by scribd ?

fuzzix• 13 years ago

PDF links automatically get a scribd link generated - it is a separate link to view the PDF using scribd.

Is there a browser remaining which does not competently handle PDFs without a plugin?

riffraff2• 13 years ago

wow, I always interpreted that in the sense that this was hosted by scribd, thanks :)

pbhjpbhj• 13 years ago

I've got FF25 on WinXP where I am now.

Couple of weeks ago I had a .pdf file that didn't open in pdf.js so I set FF as the handler for .pdf files.

This link downloaded rather than opening pdf.js. Then it proceeded to open new tabs at about one every 2s (it's a very slow laptop) ... not sure what was going on there but I'd describe it as being "not competently handled" despite it being probably specific to my [nearly?] unique settings.

nl2• 13 years ago

It's a PDF. All PDFs linked to on HN have a scribd link automatically appended.

adrianb• 13 years ago

Interesting that the scribd link also redirects to the original PDF. Is it only me who has this?

jzwinck• 13 years ago

On the lethal discomfort of being a junior crew member on a luxury cruise: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/cruises/9860808/Five-dead-...

This happens again and again, year after year: lifeboat drills actually kill people. Usually low-ranking, low-paid crew members, usually when the lifeboat is being hoisted back up after the deployment drill. The systems are not adequately designed to support this use case, best practices (few or no people on board for drills) are not enforced, and people are dying--perhaps more people than are actually saved by lifeboats.

Many more such incidents are catalogued here: http://maritimeaccident.org/categories/lifeboat-accidents/

kclo4• 13 years ago

My father almost died on a cruise. He has serious Diabetes/Heart issues, and from eating too much, his heart went into Bradycardia (slow erratic rhythm). They kept him alive on the ship quite well, left him in Cozumel in one of Carnivals "recommended Hospitals". The nurses don't speak English, they did not use gloves and did not have food during the weekend. You don't really want to get sick on a cruise.

On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise (1996) [pdf]

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