Ebola nurse: I would never put anyone else in danger

A NURSE accused of hiding the true temperature of ebola victim Pauline Cafferkey yesterday said the claims were ‘preposterous’.

Donna Wood, pictured, allegedly falsified the Scots nurse’s temperature reading during the ‘chaotic’ screening process at Heathrow Airport after they returned from fighting the disease in Sierra Leone in December 2014.

But the medic told a misconduct hearing: ‘If I had been aware of anybody having a temperature, it would be a danger, it would be like a red alert in my mind.

‘I had spent six weeks protecting myself from contracting ebola, ensuring my colleagues who were around me were protecting themselves. It would be preposterous of me to even contemplate allowing someone else to put themselves in danger, or myself, or my family or my country.’

Miss Wood was appearing before the Nursing and Midwifery Council in London. She denies three misconduct charges, including dishonestly recording Miss Cafferkey’s temperature to hide it from health officials.

At the time she was a senior sister at Haywood Hospital, Staffordshire.

She is accused of writing down the temperature of Miss Cafferkey, from Cambuslang, Lanarkshire, as 37.2c after a doctor twice read it as 38.2c and 38.3c. A reading above 37.5c meant further assessment by Public Health England doctors.

Miss Cafferkey was checked again three times by a PHE consultant and found to be a maximum of 37.6c, so she was given the all-clear to travel to Glasgow.

Miss Wood told the hearing Miss Cafferkey had felt hot but said this was likely because she had fallen asleep wearing a hoodie.