Doctor who failed to record ebola nurse’s ‘trigger’ temperature faces being struck off
A DOCTOR who helped Scots nurse Pauline Cafferkey get through UK health screening when she had ebola faces being struck off. Dr Hannah Ryan – who helped take the temperatures of colleagues when she and the group landed at Heathrow Airport – was found guilty at a tribunal yesterday of dishonesty.
The 31-year-old and 12 other healthcare professionals were returning to the UK after a five-week stint treating victims of the deadly disease in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
But she was ‘shocked’ when she noticed Miss Cafferkey’s temperature was 1C higher than the recommended 37.5C (99.5F) set down as the trigger for further screening tests.
Despite the reading, a medical record was falsified to suggest Miss Cafferkey, 40, was safe to catch a connecting flight to Glasgow.
The truth emerged when Ryan approached another colleague at Heathrow and confessed there had been ‘an issue’ and Miss CafTribunal ferkey, of Cambuslang, near Glasgow, was returned to Terminal 4 to undergo further screening.
The Scot had passed another test having earlier taken paracetamol – but went on to develop ebola and nearly died twice before making a recovery.
Ryan later tried to conceal her role from Dr Nick Gent, a consultant assigned to investigate the incident at Heathrow on December 28, 2014.
Initially, she claimed in a phone call that Miss Cafferkey’s temperature reading was ‘normal’.
She later called Dr Gent back to admit she had given incorrect information.
At the Medical Practitioners Service in Manchester, Ryan, from Liverpool, was found guilty of misleading and dishonest conduct towards Dr Gent following a week-long hearing.
She was cleared of dishonestly agreeing to Miss Cafferkey’s temperature being faked after the panel accepted that she had ‘acquiesced’ rather than ‘agreeing’ to the plan. Ryan was also cleared of dishonestly hiding the temperature reading from Public Health England (PHE) staff at the screening area.
Panel chairman Dr Bernard Herdan told her: ‘The tribunal recognised that your conduct was not premeditated. It took account of your written evidence that you were “exceptionally tired”, “not thinking clearly” and that you had “a feeling of panic, fear and being paralysed”.’
But he said: ‘The tribunal was of the view that a reasonable and honest person would find it disbecame honest for you, in your first telephone call with Dr Gent, to have concealed the information about your role in taking Miss Cafferkey’s temperature, and that it had been greater than 37.5C.
‘The tribunal considered that you must have realised that this would have been relevant to the context and purpose of his call, and indeed you told the tribunal of your impression that a key purpose of Dr Gent’s call was to establish when Ms Cafferkey symptomatic.’ He added: ‘You must have been aware of the need to tell Dr Gent what had occurred with respect to the taking of Miss Cafferkey’s temperature. It was of the view that you must have realised that your conduct was dishonest in order to have made the decision to call Dr Gent back later in the day.’
Ryan will face a further a hearing which will decide what sanction, if any, she will face.
During the hearing she recalled the moment she and nurse Donna Wood, 47, helped take Miss Cafferkey’s temperature and said: ‘After taking her temperature again I remember feeling overwhelmed by panic in that moment.’
Ryan added: ‘Donna then suggested that she would write 37.2 on the form so that we could get out of here and I accept going along with that suggestion.’
Cafferkey was cleared of misconduct at a hearing last September. Wood was suspended for two months last November.
‘Conduct not premeditated’ ‘Overwhelmed by panic’