--- title: Condition of Scottish Nurse Who Had Ebola Relapse Worsens description: "She is now critically ill" canonical: https://time.com/4074377/pauline-cafferkey-ebola-nurse-critically-ill/ author: Rishi Iyengar article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-15T06:10:28.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-05T08:32:20.642Z article:section: Health og:title: Scottish Nurse's Condition Deteriorates From Ebola Relapse og:description: Pauline Cafferkey is now "critically ill," a London hospital said. og:url: https://time.com/4074377/pauline-cafferkey-ebola-nurse-critically-ill/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1c114df0e409bd0f/69886862196cf407d303888e/gettyimages-460991168.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 4554 og:image:height: 2562 og:image:alt: BRITAIN-HEALTH-EBOLA og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Scottish Nurse's Condition Deteriorates From Ebola Relapse twitter:description: Pauline Cafferkey is now "critically ill," a London hospital said. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1c114df0e409bd0f/69886862196cf407d303888e/gettyimages-460991168.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Condition of Scottish Nurse Suffering From Ebola Relapse Deteriorates > Sponsored content. 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Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-network-2026q3/newsletters?i=1ac4b76d-2a23-4118-82e3-8da439ce0b8b&cr=time-nl-network-2026q3-v1) ## Video: How Suits Protect Doctors From Ebola [Watch (HLS stream): How Suits Protect Doctors From Ebola](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/O5USUvDI.m3u8) (2:12)  _Published 2014-08-04. While people rely on doctors to stop the Ebola outbreaks in Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia, doctors rely on suits to protect them._ by [Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Oct 15, 2015 6:10 AM UTC by [Rishi Iyengar](https://time.com/author/rishi-iyengar/) ## Rishi Iyengar Oct 15, 2015 6:10 AM UTC Scottish nurse Pauline Cafferkey, recently readmitted to a London hospital because of “late” complications following her recovery from Ebola, has taken a turn for the worse, the hospital [said](https://www.royalfree.nhs.uk/news-media/news/update-on-pauline-cafferkey/) Wednesday. “We are sad to announce that Pauline Cafferkey’s condition has deteriorated and she is now critically ill,” read a statement from London’s Royal Free Hospital, where the 39-year-old has been in the high-level isolation unit for nearly a week. Cafferkey was transferred to Royal Free [last Friday](http://time.com/4067694/ebola-scottish-nurse-pauline-cafferkey-isolation-unit/) after going into a National Health Service clinic in Glasgow for an illness. She had previously recovered from an Ebola infection she caught while treating patients in Sierra Leone — one of the three West African countries where an outbreak last year claimed over 11,000 lives. It has been deemed possible for the Ebola virus to remain inside the body long after one has stopped displaying symptoms, and Cafferkey’s family members criticized her treatment by doctors when she went in for a checkup last Tuesday but was told she could go home. “At that point, me and my family believe they missed a big opportunity to give the right diagnosis and we feel she was let down,” her sister Toni said in an [interview](http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/family-condemns-hospital-failures-after-6612236) with the _Sunday Mail_ newspaper. “I think it is absolutely diabolical the way she has been treated.” ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] We touch our face about 1, 000 times a day. And these suits are about 115, 116 degrees you can, and you're losing three to five liters of sweat every time you go in, inside these suits. You can imagine. That you just want to rub your eyes or rub the sweat from your face, and you can't do that because that's an opportunity to come into contact with the virus. I was recently deployed on behalf of the World Health Organization to to Guinea to help with the Ebola outbreak. When you're providing care to patients, you're constantly being exposed to blood, vomit, diarrhea, every bodily fluid that's there. I'm sure you've seen pictures of the personal protection equipment or PPE that we're required to wear. We start with a base layer of scrubs, and then these thick rubber boots that come up to our knees. It's on top of the scrubs and the boots, we actually wear, an impermeable Tyvek suit, that, is incredibly hot. And then we also wear two pairs of gloves. On top of the tivex suit we have to put a hood, that is an impermeable hood that covers every other part of our, part of our head. We have to wear a respirator that covers our nose and our mouth, and then finally a pair of goggles that cover, cover our eyes on top of the hood. So basically, literally nothing is left uncovered. So that's just getting dressed. The PPE itself is, is a good first step. But even with all these protective equipments you're still handling needles. And you're still being exposed to, to patients' body fluids. We talk a lot about how how difficult the working conditions are. And how hot it and how restrictive these suits are but, I would say it comes nowhere near the difficult experience that it must be to be a patient. To be infected with it. Or to be the loved one of a patient who's going through that. And for me, that's something that I always think about. [ MUSIC ] That's the thing about this virus, it's actually... I hate to say the word easy, but it's really easy to control. 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