Ebola nurse ‘happy to be alive’ after hospital discharge

ON THE MEND?Nurse Pauline Cafferkey.

Ebola nurse ‘happy to be alive’ after hospital discharge


Anton McNulty

Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey says she is happy to be alive after she was discharged from hospital after making a full recovery from Ebola.
Ms Cafferkey (39), has made a full recovery from the deadly virus and was discharged from the Royal Free Hospital in London over the weekend, just three weeks after her condition was described as critical.
Ms Cafferkey was diagnosed with the Ebola virus on December 29 after feeling unwell after returning from Sierra Leone where she worked as an aid worker for Save the Children in a treatment centre.
She was transferred to hospital in London from her home in Glasgow and placed in a specialist isolation unit where she was treated. When she was initially diagnosed she felt fine but her condition became critical and there were real concerns for her survival.
Ms Cafferkey family has very close ties with Achill Island as her late grandfather, Anthony was born in Bunnacurry and her father, Michael is a regular visitor to the island. She has many cousins living on the island and they are said to be delighted that she has made a full recovery.

‘Completely recovered’
Dr Michael Jacobs, from the hospital’s infectious diseases team, said Ms Cafferkey had now completely recovered and was ‘not infectious in any way’.
Speaking to the BBC following her discharge, Ms Cafferkey said she was delighted to be alive but there was a time when you felt she had enough.
“I am just happy to be alive. I still don’t feel 100 percent, I feel quite weak, but I’m looking forward to going home,” she said.
“My first few days I was very well - I just couldn’t understand all the fuss. Obviously at the back of my mind I had seen what could happen and what could potentially happen to me. There was a point, which I remember clearly. I do remember saying: ‘That’s it, I’ve had enough’,” she said.
Ms Cafferkey worked as a public health nurse in the Blantyre Health Centre near Glasgow and revealed that he had ‘no sense of time’ in hospital and cannot remember an entire week when the virus took hold.
When asked if if she wanted to return to Sierra Leone, she replied that she just wanted to return to normal life.
“I would have to think seriously about it. I am definitely going to give aid work a break for a while. I just want to go back to my normal job, my normal life and I think my family will be happy with that as well.”