Kari Kolstoe with the medications she takes for her cancer. Photo / Supplied
Kari Kolstoe with the medications she takes for her cancer. Photo / Supplied
A woman in forced quarantine aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship off the coast of the US is worried she will miss a much-needed round of chemotherapy treatment.
Kari Kolstoe, 60, was diagnosed with stage four neuroendocrine cancer, which attacks the digestive tract and makes carcinoid tumours in the body.
The North Dakota woman's cancer has spread to her lower back, with her chemotherapy treatment due to start Tuesday New Zealand time.
While Kolstoe's doctor has given her medication to cope with the pain, she desperately needs to get off the ship to receive medication to attack the cancer.
The 60-year-old says she sympathises with those on ship who have coronavirus, but says her body could fail her if she isn't let off.
A deserted lounge area on the Grand Princess cruise ship that is currently off the California coast. Photo / AP
"I have rights, too," Kolstoe told CNN.
"And if I don't have the coronavirus, I need to get that found out sooner rather than later because every day we argue about where we [the ship] are going and what the protocols are going to be, my cancer is growing.
"All we had been doing is living in our cancer world. Paul's [Kolstoe's husband] dad died seven weeks ago, his mum has pretty severe cancer at 92, so we just had all of this stuff going on, and we thought this would be a break from this cancer world."
As of Friday, 46 people on the cruise ship were tested for coronavirus with 21 testing positive for the infection.
A further 24 people had negative tests and one was inconclusive.
Kolstoe revealed the Grand Princess asked passengers to rank their medical issues on a scale of one to five, with one being urgent and life-threatening.
The 60-year-old put herself in the number two category, which is someone with an "urgent pre-existing medical appointments scheduled within the next 7 days."
However, no one has been in touch about her medical needs.
The Grand Princess cruise ship. Photo / AP
"It does make you feel like no one cares in here," she said.
"I know that rights for the common good trump everything else, obviously," she said.
"But we are people too, and we all have lives and people who love us, and we love them."
New Zealand has had its fifth confirmed case of coronavirus - while a sixth case is "probable" after a woman's cruise-ship holiday in the US. Health officials have also confirmed a second probable case.
Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said on Saturday afternoon that the fifth confirmed case was a woman in her 40s - the partner of the third Covid-19 case confirmed in New Zealand.
She was already in self-isolation and did not require hospital-level care.
Eight New Zealand passengers who were previously on board the cruise ship may have been in contact with a confirmed coronavirus case, the Ministry of Health has said.
All of them are now back in New Zealand. Five of them are well, while one of the other three, a woman in her 70s, was in North Shore Hospital.
After finishing the cruise, she had flown back from San Francisco to Auckland on Flight NZ7 (on February 25). She was admitted to hospital with a respiratory illness and tested for the virus but returned a negative result.
However, health officials now believe she is a probable case.
As a result, 43 hospital staff who came into close contact with her have been stood down for the remainder of the 14-day isolation period since they treated her.
