WATCH: A nurse practitioner from Rossland has been released from hospital after a third straight test for Ebola came back negative
A B.C. nurse, who has been released from hospital after testing negative for the Ebola virus, says she was impressed by how her case was handled by medical staff in Kelowna.
Patrice Gordon, a mother of three from Rossland, B.C, has been working at an Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone since November.
She arrived back home on Christmas Day. After three days of self-monitoring, she developed fever and sore throat.
“The protocol is very clear on what you do in that instance ,” says Gordon. “I was in daily communication with public health, so I reported the rise in my temperature and feeling a bit achy, and that set the wheels into motion.”
On Dec.29, Gordon was admitted to the Kelowna General Hospital, one of the five facilities in the province able to handle Ebola patients.
Gordon says she had to go in through the backdoor, straight into an isolation room and did not pass through any patient care areas.
“It was a scary process to arrive at the hospital,” admits Gordon. “When I realized they shut down the parking lot and the ambulance bay. Everything they did was part of the protocol and I understood it, but still, it was surprising to me to be the causative agent in all this furor.”
RELATED: A White Rock, B.C. nurse tells Global News why she’s currently in Sierra Leone despite the threat of the virus
While the set-up was different from her experience in Sierra Leone, Gordon says she was surprised by how ready the hospital was to admit her.
“I found it all quite stunning, the process they have gone though to prepare the area in the time that they had. They had it completely set up, so that I had everything that I needed in the room,” she says. “It felt really well thought out.”
She says she had little doubt that what she had was just a cold, and not Ebola, because it did not match what she has witnessed in Ebola patients in West Africa and she was very confident in the safety procedures she had to go through during her time in Sierra Leone.
Since arriving at Kelowna General, Gordon tested negative for Ebola twice and has now been released from hospital.
She posted the following update on her Facebook page:
The journey from Freetown, Sierra Leone to Brussels, London, Calgary then Kelowna was rife with hacking, coughing travellers, one who apparently generously shared their virus with me. I’m obligated to check my temperature twice daily and report in so as I felt the sore throat, myalgias, headache coming on, and saw the mercury rising (ok, so they don’t have mercury anymore), I could see what was coming. And yep. Here I sit now in the hospital on the receiving end of people dressed in full PPE, waiting for test results which will (no doubt in my mind) show that I have a boring old influenza.
Gordon will be finishing her mandatory three-week monitoring period on Jan.14, but is now allowed to see her family members.
“I am usually healthy as a horse, and I never dreamed I would end up in this situation,” says Gordon.
She says she feels guilty that her case is pulling away the spotlight from the people who are suffering from Ebola and the health care workers trying to help.
READ MORE: B.C. nurse released from hospital after testing negative for Ebola
Gordon is a member of the Emergency Response Unit with the Canadian Red Cross and previously volunteered in a multinational medical unit in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2008.
In Sierra Leone, she helped support Ebola patients and keep them alive while they are fighting the virus.
To date, 24 Canadian aid workers have been deployed with the Red Cross to Ebola-affected countries, including 13 aid workers to support the Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone.
With files from Kelly Hayes and Paula Baker
Comments