Sars patient suffering still - from prejudice

By JULIE MIDDLETON

A Hawkes Bay woman who went on a tour of China in March during the Sars crisis became the virus' first suspected New Zealand victim.

But the 68-year-old retiree will never know for sure: she had all the signs, yet notoriously fickle tests for the illness were inconclusive.

She is only now willing to talk about her experience, but public criticism of her decision to tour and continued prejudice mean she will be identified only as Meredith.

"Months on," she says, "there are still people who prefer to keep [their] distance from me. To them I am an infected untouchable."

She is now "hypersensitive" to people's reactions, she says, and some are cruel: several days before she spoke to the Herald, a potential partner at a square dancing event who knew of Meredith's Sars experience cruelly brushed her off.

Meredith was aware of the serious impact of Sars in China as she prepared to leave on her $7700 tour with 34 others at the end of March.

Despite Ministry of Health warnings for New Zealanders to reconsider non-essential travel to China, Meredith trusted the claims of tour organisers Garry and Marie Mulvannah that things would be all right.

The Director of Public Health, Dr Colin Tukuitonga, later blasted the Mulvannahs for not taking the warnings seriously.

It was obvious in China, where Sars had broken out the previous November, that people were frightened: usually bustling places were deserted, and many citizens - as well as some of the tour group - wore masks.

Meredith has no idea how she got the virus: it might have been on the busy Shanghai waterfront, or in a plane where the passenger behind her was coughing, or in a hotel room prepared by someone who was infected. "It is known that the virus can live outside the body for 24 hours," she says.

Disembarking at Auckland, Meredith felt weak. "Suddenly my suitcase was twice the size and twice as heavy. I thought it was jet lag."

But diarrhoea, a fever and a persistent cough suggested something else, and Meredith's GP admitted her to Hawke's Bay Hospital, where staff in protective gear awaited her.

Meredith's reaction: "Fear, caution, panic, shock. With appetite gone, fever, a persistent cough and pneumonia, along with aching limbs, I was both physically and emotionally exhausted ... All I wanted was sleep and peace."

She was in isolation for a week, and praises the "courage and understanding" of staff, who concealed their apprehension to care for her.

After discharge, Meredith was quarantined for two weeks at home, where she lives alone: food was delivered, and shopping and socialising were out. Meredith had to wear a mask, as did visitors; she asked friends and family to stay away.

The media, who worked out her identity through a photo of the tour party issued by the organisers, were so persistent she blacked out her house windows to maintain privacy.

"I know now how the lepers of old felt when they were banished to an island," she says.

"In a sense the lepers were more fortunate in that they had company.

"I was completely alone, still unwell and on medication.

She was "somewhat disillusioned" and depressed.

Meredith is now well, but the experience has left her "more withdrawn. I am probably hypersensitive".

"Hesitancy keeps me more to myself. My home, once a warm welcome haven, became a prison [during quarantine] and even now I still find it difficult to spend a whole day in it.

"Good people healed my body, but the system does little for the damage done to the psyche.

"I did not go to China to bring Sars back to New Zealand."