The family of a woman who suffered a severe brain injury while on holiday say they were faced with having to accept her return to the UK against medical advice or her travel insurance policy would be cancelled.Jane Rubens, 73, from Edinburgh, was involved in a car accident in the United States earlier this month and remains in a coma.Her insurance company, AXA Partners, initially told the family Mrs Rubens would need to be repatriated on Monday despite several medics advising against the move, her family told the BBC.Following a social media outcry, the insurers backed down, saying: “The welfare of Ms Rubens and her family remains our priority.”“We were already having the worst time,” her daughter Cat, 34, who is a lawyer, told the BBC. “Mum may not survive this, we just don’t know. And then to have to deal with all this.”Mrs Rubens was on holiday visiting family in Missouri when she was hit by an SUV in St Louis on 1 November. She sustained severe brain injuries and multiple haemorrhages. Since then she has been a patient at St Louis University Hospital, where she has undergone five different operations including a cranioplasty where part of her skull was removed. The most recent surgery was on Thursday.Prior to travelling, her family say Mrs Rubens took out a travel insurance policy with AXA Partners, which covered medical expenses for up to £15m ($19m).On Friday the insurance company contacted her two children Cat and Andrew, who are by her bedside, to say they intended to require her repatriation to the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh this week. On Saturday, the family sent a letter to AXA Partners outlining the medical advice they had received, …
