Ebola nurse hits out at PHE ‘blame culture’

Pauline Cafferkey, the Scottish nurse who nearly died twice from Ebola, has called on Public Health England to “recognise their own failings” in a botched Heathrow airport screening process that has led to one of her colleagues being suspended for two months.She said she was “extremely disappointed” that PHE had employed a “blame culture” that highlighted the possible mistakes made by volunteers who risked their own lives to help Ebola patients but did not acknowledge its own.Cafferkey made her remarks as Donna Wood, a nurse who was part of the same volunteer group who travelled to Sierra Leone in November 2014, was suspended by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) after it found she had concealed the nurse’s temperature during the screening process in Heathrow on December 28, 2014.Najrul Khasru, the chair of the NMC panel, told Wood: “The seriousness of your misconduct … could have contributed to the risk of Ebola, a very serious and dangerous illness, spreading in this country.” The panel described Wood’s “dishonesty” as extremely serious and called it “a momentary lapse of judgment”.Cafferkey said: “I am very sorry to hear the outcome of Donna Wood’s hearing. I still feel extremely disappointed that in making complaints against volunteers who willingly put themselves in danger for the benefit of others, Public Health England employed a blame culture and failed to recognise their own failings – which were many – on the day the volunteers arrived at Heathrow.”