A HOLIDAYMAKER from North Yorkshire who has been in hospital on a Spanish island since September 11 has pleased with his insurers: “Please get me home”.

Daniel and Margaret Green, from Tadcaster, were eight days into a 14-day cruise around the Mediterranean, when he started to feel unwell, then became too weak to move and suffered respiratory failure.

Mrs Green, 62, said: “He just started saying ‘I don’t feel 100 per cent’. He sat down then couldn’t get up, he was just so weak. That was the chest infection kicking in, then he collapsed on the bed and was taken to hospital bay and then it was panic stations. There were tests and X-rays done there, on the ship, which we hope will be covered by the insurance, but we don’t know.”

Mr Green, 61, was airlifted from the ship on September 11, but there was no room on the helicopter for Margaret, and she had to remain on the ship until it docked in Cadiz on September 13.

From there, she was taken, by taxi to Seville, then flown to Barcelona, before being flown to Mahon and driven to her husband’s bedside – all organised by the cruise company.

Mrs Green, who used to run the Seahorse pub in Fawcett Street, York, with her husband, said her insurers First Assist had paid for her hotel since she arrived, but she had been unable to find out when she and Daniel could return home. Mr Green is now in a stable condition. Doctors have told her he is well enough to be moved back to the UK.

However, due to his constant need for an oxygen tank, and low blood oxygen levels due to osteoarthritis, Margaret said she has been told Daniel will need to be flown home in an air ambulance rather than a commercial flight, but she said her insurers want him to take a commercial flight.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman said they were in touch with Mrs Green, and were providing consular assistance to help her get in touch with insurance companies and legal services, but Mr Green’s travel to the UK would be a matter for First Assist.

A representative for a UK-based private charter company said suitable flights could be chartered for overseas patients, and would probably cost in the region of £15,000 to £20,000 from Menorca to the UK.

A spokesman for ACE, who underwrite First Assist, said: “We are aware of the insurance claim and can confirm that it has been processed in accordance with the terms of the policy, working alongside our assistance provider First Assist.”