MADRID, Oct 28: The husband of a Spanish nurse who survived Ebola has slammed the government’s handling of the as he left a Madrid hospital where he had been quarantined.
“This is a story full of mistakes, blunders and above all a lack of political control,” Javier Limon told a packed news conference yesterday at the Madrid office of his lawyer.
His wife Teresa Romero was diagnosed with Ebola on October 6, becoming the first person to catch the disease outside west Africa in the current outbreak which has killed more than 4,900 people, mainly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.
Romero was one of the nursing staff at Madrid’s Carlos III hospital who volunteered to treat two elderly Spanish missionaries who caught the disease in Africa and died at the hospital in August and September.
Romero was treated with human serum containing antibodies from Ebola survivors and other drugs and was declared cured last week. She will remain in hospital until she has fully recovered.
Her husband and 14 other people who came into contact with her were also sent to a special isolation unit in the hospital to be monitored for signs of Ebola, though none showed any symptoms.
Five were released on Thursday and the remaining 10, including Limon, left the hospital on Monday.
Tempers have frayed over the case, with health workers saying they had not received adequate training and equipment, and labour unions accusing the government of trying to deflect the blame onto the nurse for the failings of its handling of the infection.
The top regional health official in the Madrid region, Javier Rodriguez, has said Romero took too long to admit she “may” have made a mistake by touching her face with the glove of her protective suit while taking it off.
Health workers jeered Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and pelted his car with surgical gloves on October 10 when he visited the hospital where Romero is being treated.
Limon said he and his wife were considering taking legal action against the government for negligence and defamation.
“Teresa was never to blame, you can only accuse her of loving her profession and of being dedicated to others,” Limon said as he sat beside his lawyer Jose Maria Garzon.
“It is a huge lack of personal and professional respect to someone who risked their life to help others,” he added.
Limon also lashed out at the decision by Spanish authorities to put down the couple’s pet dog, Excalibur. (AGENCIES)
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