Relieved Worksop man pays emotional thanks to people who fundraised to fly his sick wife home from the Middle East

Mick and Kat White were stranded in the Emirate until they paid off the enormous bill they were presented with after Kat suffered a seizure while in the shower.

The couple say they were caught out by travel insurance small print – and a crowdfunding campaign was launched to help get the couple home.

The campaign has now hit its £8,000 target and Mick, who was born in Worksop and grew up in Bircotes, said the couple were now waiting for the hospital to complete paperwork and confirm Kat was fit to fly.

Mick said: “I will be relieved when the plane lands and we can get my wife the treatment she needs.

“We are waiting to get confirmation of the fit to fly, but wanted to thank every person who has taken time to help with donations, kind messages, phone calls and wishes of good luck. It’s been very tough but we are overwhelmed with the kindness from friends and strangers.

The pair told The Mirror that they were on their way home after working in India for 12 months and decided to spend a few days in Dubai, visiting friends and looking for new job opportunities.

However, within days arriving in the United Arab Emirate, on April 25, Mick watched in terror as his wife experienced a seizure, involving full body spasms.

After a handful of hospital visits, the couple – who were already low on cash after their work contract abroad – were left penniless, adding the UK embassy has failed to help, telling them "we’re not a charity".

The pair said they were trapped because one of the hospitals, which has charged them thousands for tests they "may not have even needed", was holding Mick’s passport until he paid £6,000 as the first slice of an “extortionate” “payment plan”.

Explaining how he felt “like a prisoner”, Mick told the newspaper: “So we got a few days into it, she just didn’t feel well. And then she had like a fully body spasm, her body froze.

"She was in the shower, so I moved her to the bed. I couldn’t even put her in the recovery position, she couldn’t bend her legs. And her hands all curled up with the spasm and her mouth changed.

"And I thought, is she having a stroke?"

They left the hotel they were staying in and rushed her to hospital, where Mick believed his insurance would cover the cost of the treatment.

He told The Mirror that within the space of “eight or nine hours”, Kat, from Glasgow, had been taken from room to room and given "treatment after treatment", which eventually left them with a bill of £1,800.

But the doctors were not finished with the best part of £2,000, and advised Kat to spend another night in hospital for more tests and a drip, which would cost a whopping £3,000.

Unable to cover the costs, Mick explained their situation and Kat was sent home with a batch of tablets and assurance she should feel better in four or five days – but it did not take long for the illness to rear its head.

She was then readmitted to hospital after another episode – and the pair were told she would need an MRI scan, which left doctors stumped because they could not see anything that could cause the seizures.

Mick said he heard one of the medics say their insurance covered “everything up until here”, but any future treatments would have to be from the couple, who did not have a penny to their name.

He added the travel insurance, provided by Barclays, refused further charges because the specific trip did not start and end in the UK.

The claim was not rejected during a previous trip to Saudi Arabia, or raised when they first contacted them following Kat’s episode, allowing them to claim several treatments, which suggested that it was valid, Mick said.

By the end of their tour of Dubai’s hospital system, the couple were left with an £11,000 bill. Though many officials had told them to get back to the UK quickly, the couple are stuck because Kat needs a fit to fly note and help getting on the plane.

Mick said the embassy has failed to find them a solution despite the seriousness of Kat’s sudden illness

When asked how the embassy had helped the situation, Mick said they told him “we’re not a charity”.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office website says its refuses to pay for costs like medical bills for Brit nationals abroad, but provides advice instead.

The FCDO told The Mirror in a statement: "We are providing consular assistance to a British couple in Dubai.”

David Warburton MP for Somerset and Frome, where the Whites last lived in the UK, told The Mirror his office has been helping with the couple’s “desperate situation”.

He said: "My team and I are in regular contact with Mr White, the FCDO and the British Embassy in Dubai to seek an urgent resolution to the desperate situation which the Whites are facing.

“We continue to urge the Embassy to give this matter their immediate and critical attention and I’m appealing to the FCDO to advise if there’s anything further that can be done to support and assist the White family."