The nurse who was the first person to contract Ebola in the United States filed suit on Monday against the Dallas hospital where she worked, saying it knowingly left workers without the training or equipment needed to handle the disease.
The nurse, Nina Pham, 26, was one of two at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who were infected while treating Thomas Eric Duncan, who had the virus when he arrived from the West African country of Liberia.
Ms. Pham’s suit, filed in State District Court in Dallas, accuses the hospital’s parent company, Texas Health Resources, of negligence, fraud and invasion of privacy. Not only did the hospital expose her to a deadly disease, she contends, it also made false statements about her condition and released video of her without her permission.
A Texas Health spokesman, Wendell Watson, said Ms. Pham was “still a member of our team,” and declined to address the specific claims. He added, “We remain optimistic that we can resolve this matter.”
Ms. Pham has been free of Ebola for months, but she has lingering medical and emotional problems, and the long-term consequences remain unclear, said her lawyer, Charla Aldous.
“She still has fatigue and body aches,” and has not been able to return to work, Ms. Aldous said. “She’s been having some liver problems. Her hair started falling out.”
Mr. Duncan went to the hospital’s emergency room on Sept. 25 with fever, nausea and abdominal pain, and was sent home with some medication. He returned three days later and was admitted to the intensive care unit, where Ms. Pham worked. He was confirmed as the first Ebola case in the United States.
“Nina said, ‘What do I do? What do I wear?’ and her nurse manager printed out a piece of paper from the C.D.C., and that is the sum total of the training this young lady received,” Ms. Aldous said, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “She wasn’t given the proper equipment, and she wasn’t taught how to put it on and take it off.”
Other employees have made similar assertions about Texas Health Presbyterian, and nurses around the country have said they felt their hospitals had left them similarly unprepared.
In October, Texas Health Resources said that such claims “do not reflect actual facts,” and that the hospital followed all guidelines issued by the C.D.C.
Mr. Duncan died Oct. 8. Ms. Pham fell ill two days later, was admitted to Presbyterian Hospital and was later transferred to the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center in Bethesda, Md. Amber Vinson, another nurse who had treated Mr. Duncan, became ill several days after Ms. Pham, and was taken to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.
Both women survived. Ms. Pham was released on Oct. 24, and received a hug from President Obama at the White House.
- http://bit.ly/1DAlp3l
Niciun comentariu:
Trimiteți un comentariu