Was Ebola Nurse Let Down?

The family of nurse Pauline Cafferkey says the way she was treated was diabolical.

17:32 13 October 2015

Pauline Cafferkey has contracted Ebola virus in December 2014 and spent almost a month in isolation at the beginning of the year. On Tuesday, she fell ill and was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow.

 

Her sister, Toni Cafferkey, said that her sister had gone to the GP out-of-hours clinic at the Victoria Hospital in Glasgow on Monday night but her diagnosing physician sent her home.

 

She said: "At that point me and my family believe they missed a big opportunity to give the right diagnosis and we feel she was let down. Instead of being taken into hospital, she spent the whole of Tuesday very ill.

 

"I think it is absolutely diabolical the way she has been treated... We don't know if the delays diagnosing Pauline have had an adverse effect on her health, but we intend to find out.

 

"It has not been good enough. We think there have been major failings and we just want her to pull through. This kind of recurrence seems to be rare but we don't yet know enough about it."

 

 

Meanwhile, a spokesman for NHS Glasgow and Clyde said that she was taken care of and that all protocols were followed.

"Her management and the clinical decisions taken based on the symptoms she was displaying at the time were entirely appropriate.

 

"All appropriate infection control procedures were carried out as part of this episode of care."

 

Pauline has since been flown to the Royal Free Hospital in London where she remains in a serious condition in an isolation unit. She it not thought to be contagious.