Bellevue Workers, Worn Out From Treating Ebola Patient, Face Stigma Outside Hospital
By ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS and NATE SCHWEBER
NYTimes.com
OCT. 29, 2014
For six years, Mayra Martinez had been going to the same beautician in Queens, and considered her a friend. On Saturday, while getting her hair done, Ms. Martinez, 45, mentioned she had just gotten a new job.
“Where?” the beautician asked.
“Bellevue,” Ms. Martinez said.
“She just froze and asked, ‘Are you anywhere near him?’ ” Ms. Martinez recalled. Then the beautician asked her to please find someone else to do her hair.
By “him,” the beautician meant Dr. Craig Spencer, who is New York’s first Ebola patient. As Bellevue Hospital Center goes into its seventh day of treating Dr. Spencer, who had worked with Doctors Without Borders in Guinea, some of its employees are feeling stigmatized — a harsh consequence of being the first hospital in the city to deal with an outbreak that has killed about 5,000 people in West Africa, and which is known to kill about half the people who become infected.
Bellevue’s medical director, Dr. Nate Link, said more than a dozen employees — not limited to those taking care of Dr. Spencer — had reported being discriminated against, including not being welcome at a business or social event. One employee lost a teaching position, he said.
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