A doctor has admitted that she misled other medics about the health of a colleague returning to the UK from West Africa with Ebola in 2014. BBC News reports that Dr Hannah Ryan told a disciplinary hearing she had been in a state of "disbelief, fear and panic" after finding out nurse Pauline Cafferkey had had a high temperature, a warning sign.
Instead of alerting public health officials at Heathrow Airport, both continued on their journey home. Ryan denies misconduct.
The report says Ryan and Cafferkey had been working in Sierra Leone with other volunteers to help treat Ebola victims. And on 28 December they had landed at Heathrow, "keen" to be home for the Christmas holiday period, the tribunal heard. They queued to get clearance from Public Health England medics to be allowed to leave. Trying to help PHE staff with the process, they agreed to take and record their own temperatures.
Ryan had then taken Cafferkey's temperature and got a reading of 38.2° – higher than normal. But, the report says, a lower temperature, 37.2°C, was actually recorded, and Cafferkey was then allowed to catch her connecting flight to Glasgow to go home. She fell seriously ill the next day and tested positive for Ebola.
The report says Ryan has admitted misleading others and that she "acquiesced" in the wrong temperature being given, but denies misconduct by her actions at the airport and during a subsequent investigation by Public Health England.
In September 2016, the Nursing and Midwifery Council cleared Cafferkey of misconduct over claims she had hidden her infection, after a panel ruled that her judgement had been impaired by her illness. In November, another colleague, senior nurse Donna Woods, was suspended by the NMC for two months. The panel found Wood suggested a lower temperature be recorded on Cafferkey's screening form so they could pass through checks at passport control more quickly.
[link url="http://www.bbc.com/news/health-39327426"]BBC News report[/link]