First Choice settles damages for sick children
Damages for 60 children who fell ill on a First Choice holiday in the Dominican Republic were approved by the High Court in London yesterday.
First Choice has now agreed to pay £1.9m in settlements to 409 British holidaymakers who suffered severe gastric illnesses, including Salmonella, at the four-star Bahia Principe resort in San Juan.
Sister company Thomson settled 44 similar cases last December for nearly £200,000.
Both operators still feature the resort in their programmes but say it will leave in summer 2014.
Travel law specialists at Irwin Mitchell said First Choice is the final holiday giant to settle cases for its customers.
It follows settlements four years ago for 500 holidaymakers who had stayed in the same hotel at the same time with Thomas Cook and My Travel for a total of over £3.5m. Thomas Cook no longer features the hotel.
In total 963 Irwin Mitchell clients who stayed at the hotel in 2007 have now received over £5.5m in compensation from Thomas Cook, My Travel, First Choice and Thomson.
In addition, the law firm also managed to get a substantial settlement for more than 100 guests who fell ill at the same hotel in 1997 and has also successfully acted for holidaymakers who fell ill at the hotel in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008 and 2010, and continue to act for clients who fell ill at the hotel in 2009 and 2012.
"The long history of guests suffering illness at this hotel makes grim reading. There have been problems at the hotel on and off for 10 years in the lead up to the 2007 outbreak, and we are still receiving complaints from guests five years after that dreadful outbreak," said Clive Garner, a partner and head of the international travel law team at Irwin Mitchell.
"We remain very concerned that hotels and tour operators have not learned vital lessons and that all too often holidaymakers suffer illness, sometimes with life changing consequences due to inadequate health and hygiene standards."
He said tour operators must take greater responsibility for their customers’ health and wellbeing.
Some of the guests staying in 2007 told lawyers of the "awful" conditions including:
– Food undercooked, left uncovered for many hours and covered with flies
– Dogs, birds and mice seen in the dining area
– Cockroaches and ants seen in bedrooms and bathrooms
– Toilets often blocked, did not flush or on occasion back flushed, overflowed and flooded sewage into bathrooms and;
– A smell of sewage, urine and vomit in and around the hotel.
Some guests described the hotel as being like a "casualty ward", with fleets of ambulances ferrying poorly guests to hospital day after day.
According to the law firm, one plane flying British passengers home was quarantined at Gatwick while another at the same airport and one landing at Manchester was boarded by doctors as guests needed treatment on the runway before they could disembark.
by Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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