One of the major stories that has come out of the Ebola outbreak that began last year is that a nurse here in the United States became the first person to contract the disease while on U.S. soil. That nurse, Nina Pham, survived the ordeal but it was undoubtedly a painful and disturbing experience for her. So imagine her anger when it was discovered that procedures and policies at her hospital may not have been followed, and these lapses likely contributed to her contraction of the deadly disease.
Pham has since filed a lawsuit against the hospital she works at because she hoped the hospital would be more “open and honest” about its failures during the Ebola outbreak, but she has accepted that this may not happen.
According to Pham’s claims, the chief medical officer of the hospital made false statements to Congress; the hospital failed to uphold and adhere to critical policies that dealt with managing the disease; and there were some medical professionals who were left untrained or unprotected by the hospital, thus increasing the likelihood that people would become infected with Ebola.
Such an ordeal — treating an Ebola patient who eventually died and then contracting the frightening disease after it — would be traumatizing to anyone, and the fact that Pham survived and has persevered is amazing. There will certainly be plenty of legal processes and steps that need to be taken in the coming weeks, as is customary with any lawsuit, let alone a medical malpractice suit. But in the end, it could earn Pham the justice she deserves.
Source: CNN, “Texas nurse who contracted Ebola sues hospital company,” Eliott C. McLaughlin and Holly Yan, March 2, 2015
