Nurse who got Ebola from first US patient sues hospital, says privacy was violated
A Texas nurse who got Ebola after caring for the first U.S. patient with the deadly disease, has sued her employer.
In a complaint filed Monday in Dallas County court, nurse Nina Pham contends that Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas not only failed to take appropriate precautions to protect her from becoming infected with the Ebola virus, but it also violated her privacy when she herself became ill, according to ABC News, Courthouse News and the Dallas Morning News.
Pham says the only education she got about protective measures to take against Ebola was in nursing school and a printout from a supervisor’s Google search on the Internet. She also alleges it was only after days of nursing Thomas Eric Duncan and pleading for hazmat suits that nurses got them.
Although she says she asked that no information be publicly provided about her case, the hospital, concerned about its public image after initially failing to diagnose Duncan correctly, focused on public relations rather than what she wanted. She says she never agreed to the public release of a video taken by a doctor before she was being transported to National Institutes of Health clinical center in Bethesda, Maryland.
The hospital and its parent company, Texas Health Resources, were both named as defendants and have declined to discuss specifics of the case.
“Never once did THR get Nina’s permission to be used as a PR pawn like this. Never once did THR discuss its purposes or motivations or tell Nina what it was going to do with the information it sought from her,” her suit says.
However, in a Monday statement to workers, the hospital said it had been “sensitive to Nina’s privacy, and we adhered to HIPAA rules in determining what information to share publicly. We had Nina’s consent to share the information about her that was released,” reports ABC News.
A spokesman for THR told Courthouse News on Sunday that “Nina Pham bravely served Texas Health Dallas during a most difficult time” and said the defendants “continue to support and wish the best for her, and we remain optimistic that constructive dialogue can resolve this matter.”
Pham is currently on paid leave from her job.
