Nina Pham, 26 years old, is the nurse who became known as an Ebola survivor after tending to the first man to contract the potentially deadly virus in Texas last year, is filing a law suit against the hospital and its mother company, Texas Health Resources, according to NBC 5 News.
Experimental drugs and special care aided in making Nina Pham now Ebola free. However, she aired her fear that she may never escape the deadly disease. Since her infection last year, she had constant nightmares, body aches and insomnia. She fears that these are life-long side effects that may take a toll on her life as a normal person.
She was one of the two nurses infected with Ebola after taking care of Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to get infected and die from Ebola in the United States, last fall at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas.
She said that the hospital and its parent/mother company, Texas Health Resources, failed her and her co-workers during the peak of the Ebola scare that ravaged through three countries in West Africa namely Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone from December 2013 until now.
"I wanted to believe that they would have my back and take care of me, but they just haven't risen to the occasion," Pham told The Dallas Morning News last week in an exclusive interview.
She is scheduled to file the lawsuit on Monday in Dallas County and she alleged that while she has become known as the American face battling the deadly disease, the hospital lacked proper training and needed medical equipment to protect her and her colleagues from the disease. Aside from that, they had breached her privacy as a person because she had been dubbed as a 'symbol of corporate neglect, a casualty of a hospital system's failure to prepare for an impending medical crisis."
She added, "Texas Health Resources was negligent because it failed to develop policies and train its staff for treating Ebola patients. Texas Health Resources did not have proper protective gear for those who treated Duncan."
Meanwhile, Texas Health Resources has responses on Friday releasing a statement: "Nina Pham bravely served Texas Health Dallas during a most difficult time. We continue to support and wish the best for her, and we remain optimistic that constructive dialogue can resolve this matter."
As part of the lawsuit the 26-year old nurse wants to have unspecified damages for physical pain and mental anguish. She wants them to pay her medical expenses and loss of future earnings. Above all, she wants that hospitals and big corporations realize that nurses and health care workers are important.
