REDBOURN: A quick-thinking nurse has been rewarded for saving a colleague’s life.
Alice Fitzgerald (pictured below), who has worked for West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust (WHHT) for 41 years, is August’s Employee of the Month thanks to her actions during an incident at Hemel Hempstead hospital in April this year, when a pregnant colleague began to suffer from severe stomach pains after lunch one day.
Alice, from Redbourn, who has been working in Hemel’s outpatients department for the past 17 years, quickly diagnosed an ectopic pregnancy, ordered a scan to confirm it and then called for an ambulance to take her acutely-ill colleague to Watford General hospital for an immediate operation.
Despite losing a lot of blood and spending four days in intensive care, the patient, who has been working in the NHS for eight years, survived the ordeal and was back working in outpatients five weeks later.
Alice, who with a team of 25 treats up to 300 patients a day, was presented with an Employee of the Month certificate and gift vouchers at a ceremony on August 16.
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