A Michigan nurse who was reportedly denied the COVID-19 test twice after she failed to show symptoms, has been found dead in her home.
Detroit Free Press reports that 54-year-old Lisa Ewald, of Dearborn, was a longtime healthcare employee at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. She had recently treated a coronavirus patient at the hospital and didn’t wear a mask, according to her niece, Mandi Standifer.
Standifer said Ewald told her that hospital officials denied testing for COVID-19 twice because she hadn’t displayed any symptoms. By the time she did take the test last week, symptoms were present. Ewald had a fever and had lost her sense of smell and taste.
On Wednesday, a fellow nurse found Ewald dead in her living room, three days after she learned that her test came back positive for COVID-19.
Family members are now frustrated that hospital officials made Ewald wait so long to take the test.
“It’s just wrong,” Ewald’s nephew, Micah Standifer, said. “You would think they would take care of their own.”
According to Henry Ford Health System President and CEO Wright Lassiter III, the hospital followed guidelines set forth by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Currently, the CDC recommends testing employees only when they become symptomatic. Whether at work or at home under self-isolation, if an employee begins experiencing symptoms, they are urged to contact Employee Health and arrange for immediate testing.”
According to FOX 2, COVID-19 was Ewald’s official cause of death, although she was considered high-risk because she had asthma.
“She cared so much about other people, more than herself,” niece Karlie Ewald told FOX 2. “And that’s kind of what upsets me.”
Lisa Ewald didn’t have any children of her own and considered her nieces and nephews her children.
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[Feature Photo: Lisa Ewald/Handout]
