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Doctor who lied about Pauline Cafferkey's temperature suspended for one month

A doctor who lied about the high temperature of nurse Pauline Cafferkey was last week suspended from practising for a month

A doctor who lied about the high temperature of nurse Pauline Cafferkey was last week suspended from practising for a month.


The doctor who recorded Pauline Cafferkey's temperature at Heathrow airport
has been suspended from practice for a month, following a tribunal

Hannah Ryan took the temperature of Scottish public health nurse Ms Cafferkey as they waited to go through Ebola virus screening at Heathrow Airport in December 2014, the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) heard.

It revealed the nurse had a high temperature of 38.2C, which is a warning sign of the disease which killed thousands in west Africa. Both health professionals were heading home after volunteering to tackle the epidemic in Sierra Leone.

State of panic

But instead of raising the alarm, Dr Ryan in a state of ‘panic’ agreed a lower temperature of 37.2C was to be recorded on a screening form, and Ms Cafferkey was allowed to travel home to Scotland carrying the ‘highly contagious’ virus and putting others at ‘unwarranted risk’.

Ms Cafferkey fell critically ill the next day, but survived. Dr Ryan took Ms Cafferkey's temperature during ‘shambolic’ screening at the airport.

The hearing heard while she, Ms Cafferkey and nurse Donna Wood considered the high temperature result, one of them said, 'Let's get out of here' and Ms Cafferkey's temperature was then recorded as 37.2C, the form passed to Public Health England staff.

Exhaustion

The health professionals were exhausted from their work and travel and desperate to get out of the airport and home for Christmas, the hearing was told.

Dr Ryan admitted misleading other medics with the lower temperature being put on the form handed to the doctors screening at Heathrow.

While there were ‘extenuating circumstances’ for her actions, her behaviour five days later was 'deeply deplorable', the tribunal ruled.

'One-off mistake'

Dr Ryan, who works at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, was described as an ‘exceptional young doctor’ who had volunteered to work in ‘horrendous’ conditions to help the sick and dying, and had made a ‘one-off’ mistake under extreme fatigue and pressure.

She told the hearing: ‘Pauline Cafferkey was my friend and someone I cared about and I was worried she might die.’

Bernard Herdan, chair of the tribunal which found her guilty of serious misconduct, said: ‘Since the tribunal is satisfied the risk of repetition of your misconduct is low, and their is no risk to patient safety, it has concluded that a one-month suspension will be sufficient to mark the seriousness of your misconduct and to send a message to the profession that dishonesty by a doctor cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.’

Donna Wood was last year suspended for two months after a Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) panel found she was the one who had suggested putting the lower temperature on the form.

Ms Cafferkey was cleared by the NMC as her judgment at the airport had been so impaired by the developing illness that she could not be found guilty of misconduct.


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