Patient’s disgust after nurse who saved her is ‘bullied out of her job’
THE woman given a life-saving blood transfusion in the back of an ambulance after a miscarriage has told of her ‘disgust’ that the nurse who treated her was later allegedly bullied out of her job.
This newspaper revealed last week that Leona Harris, 45, endured two disciplinary hearings after she changed the patient’s blood transfusion bag as the ambulance hurtled along the M65 towards Burnley General Hospital last February.
Her ‘crime’ was to give the blood despite the paperwork authorising its use being inadvertently left behind.
Last month Mrs Harris’s employer, the East Lancashire NHS Hospitals Trust, informed her that her bullying claim had been rejected, and refused to allow her to return to her job unless she accepted a demotion. She resigned on January.
The patient, 32, contacted The Mail on Sunday after reading our article. Now 31 weeks pregnant, the woman, who asked not to be named, said: ‘I will do whatever I can to help Leona. If she takes the trust to court, I will speak for her.’
She added: ‘I can’t believe she’s paid such a price. She was saving my life. I’m disgusted.’
The trust insists its actions had been justified. Kevin Moynes, the trust’s director of human resources, told The Mail on Sunday that the issue was ‘not a trivial matter around paperwork’ and described last week’s article as inaccurate.
He said: ‘We are satisfied that we acted appropriately and proportionately.’
He added that Mrs Harris’s allegations of bullying were investigated fully during a transparent process and were found to be unsubstantiated.